Garth Boggiss with Heilala Vanilla posted some comments on this article. It’s always great to have a someone involved in the vanilla trade stop by. Garth has an awesome academic style lit review on vanilla. I learned a ton of stuff that vastly improved the vanilla info page.

Click read more for the rest of the story on Heilala’s Tonga plantation, and thier indoor plantation in New Zealand.

Heilala Vanilla represents two plantations. They started the first commercial vanilla plantation in Vava’u, Tonga. The second plantation is the world’s first indoor plantation in Tauranga, New Zealand. Get this:

Currently all our production comes from our plantation in Tonga. Tongan Vanilla is of high quality with similar characteristics to Madagascan. A small number of our oldest plants in our NZ glasshouse flowered in spring for the first time and have beans on the vines. The remaining plants will flower this spring and this will be first commercial crop (ED:October 2008?). These plants are imported from Tonga. We are very excited to get to the flowering stage as this validates our approach to date! Time will tell if this Vanilla has different characteristics unique to NZ or geothermal heating.
–E-mail, Garth Boggiss, Mar 4, 2008.

Listen to Garth on a podcast here.

Vava’u Tonga Planifolia Vanilla Beans
Heilala’s vanilla came in the fantastic plastic pouches shown here. The beans arrived from New Zealand in about 3 business days by air mail.

The Heilala beans are labeled “A” and “B”, but this refers to size and not quality. According to Garth:
Our products are basically over 18cm which we call A and under 18cm which we call B. All our seconds and splits are used for extract. We tested the vanallin content and it’s the same for A&B.

Interestingly most people prefer the shorter because they get more beans by weight and when using recipes that use one bean it’s cheaper to use a 3g bean than a 5g bean!

Vava’u, Tonga planifolia 15-18cm (Heilala “B”) $48 per half pound
Vava’u is an amazing island in the north of the Kingdom of Tonga. These beautiful planfolia vanilla beans are grown and cured at Heilala’s shade house plantation.

As with the previous Tonga vanilla beans reviewed, these are more moist than a typical Madagascar bean. The extra moisture gives a beautiful skin texture and color. The cure reminds me of these super fancy Tahiti grown tahitensis beans, or this Mexican vanilla.

These vanilla beans are gorgeous. The skin is soft and very supple, like a giant raisin. Very shiny and oily, with a golden sheen. The dark brown skin appears lighter in the pictures than it really is. The beans are plump and flexible – a bit floppy, even, because of the high moisture content.

The beans are all very round and plump. The top of one is broken, but none are split. They are quite easy to cut into, but use a very sharp knife because the skin is so soft and supple that it easily tears. The aroma is rich and buttery.

The caviar is very goopy and sticky. When the bean is split and peeled apart, gooey strings form between the two halves. The caviar is very oily and quite shapable. It leaves a lot of bright yellow oil on everything it touches. The caviar yield is pretty high for the size of the bean.

Vava’u, Tonga planifolia 18cm+ (Heilala “A”) $65 per half pound
These beans are exactly the same as the 15-18 cm size, but more consistently straight and physically “perfect”. Besides being longer, they are also fatter than the 15-18 cm beans.

The caviar was a bit less goopy than the smaller beans, but even more oily. The yield is on the high side of average.

Heilala’s vanilla beans are beautiful. The previously-reviewed vanilla from this region was one of my personal favorites, and this vanilla confirms that great beans are coming out of Tonga.

I only wish that Heilala’s beans were available in the US and Europe. According to Garth: “We have both smaller quantities for retail and larger for commercial use. People can order via the contact details on our website or buy from our retail stockists which are listed on the website. This list is growing quickly but will only cover New Zealand and Australia in the short-term. We are looking for distributors in America and Europe that specialize in gourmet food products and would be open to approach from suitable distributors.”

This is the second time I’ve reviewed beans from Tonga, and like last time, these are some of my personal favorite vanilla beans. These vanilla beans are suburb, I highly recommend them.

Vava’u, Tonga planifolia 26cm+ (not available, Won Longest Vanilla Bean Award as of April 2008)
These are beautiful beans — long, plump, well cured. However, they smell nothing like the other beans. Garth writes: “We don’t sell the long beans. Less than 1% of our crop is this long. They probably need different drying conditions due to the increased mass. I would just focus on the length rather than the aroma of these as they are not indicative of our main product.”

A reader recommended that I check out Beanilla.com. I’m glad I did. Beanilla.com is great source for exotic vanilla beans. Beans from Mexico and Tonga are currently listed, but I’m told they will soon add vanilla from Indonesia, Tahiti (tahitensis), Uganda, and Hawaii. I sent out an e-mail, and Brent of Beanilla.com responded right away. He used the magic phrases that make any DIY’er tingle — first, Beanilla.com’s goal is to support the vanilla enthusiast community (that’s us!), and second, were can I send samples. The samples arrived promptly with some exotic vanillas, and the LONGEST vanilla beans I’ve seen so far (January 2008).

All the beans from Beanilla.com are gorgeous and truly gourmet. They are uniformly plump, moist, and oily. Check out my close-up shots to see the different characteristics of each variety. All the beans reviewed in this instructable are excellent, but the Beanilla beans are the cream of the crop, close to perfect.

The beans were vacuum packed.

‘Eua, Tonga Planifolia (Grade A – $45 per 1/4 pound)
Beanilla.com is the only vendor in the US that sells vanilla from Tonga. Vanilla is an emerging export from Tonga and the industry is just getting started. These vanilla beans were grown on ‘Eua Island. They are almost golden (but not as light as the pictures seem to depict). The skins are amazingly soft and supple. The aroma is more floral than the typical Madagascar bean, very soft and smooth. The oil in the Tonga vanilla is especially ‘thick’ and fatty. It’s so thick that the caviar log could withstand substantial handling without falling apart. Often caviar is crumbly, but this was almost like vegetable shortening. Much higher-than-average caviar yield.

Mexico Planifolia (Grade A – $28.95 per 1/4 pound)
Beautiful vanilla beans with striking reddish “cat’s eye” streaks. Check out the close-up pictures to see for yourself. The aroma is very dark, even woody. These have the firmest skin of the five Beanilla bean varieties.

These aren’t the only Mexican vanilla beans on the web, but this is the only vendor (with beans from Mexico) that responded to questions (emails) about their beans — Beanilla.com is thus the only source I can recommend. UPDATE: Beanilla.com reduced their prices, they now have the best priced “real” Mexican vanilla beans I’ve seen.

Extra Long PNG Planifolia (“Gourmet Bourbon”) (Grade A – $40 per 1/4 pound)
Huge beans, some are almost 9″! By far the longest vanilla beans I’ve ever seen (January 2008, check the latest Longest Bean Awards…). Shockingly huge! These beans are from PNG, but have a much different aroma than other PNG beans I’ve reviewed. The smell is a combination of bold old-school chocolate licorice and coffee. I’ve read that bigger beans ripen longer and become more pungent — perhaps that accounts for the strong aroma. I’m excited to extract these beans — only the difference between planifolia and tahitensis has been similarly pronounced. Remarkable! So incredibly different from any others reviewed in this instructable.

These are also some of the “roundest” vanilla beans I’ve ever seen. Sometimes beans are paper thin, even ‘plump’ beans have a wide and a narrow side — these were perfectly round and firm, but not tough. Caviar yield was obviously very high, twice as much as a similar number of average sized beans. The caviar was a bit like clay — not fatty like the Tonga beans, but still moldable and cohesive.

Madagascar Planifolia (Grade A – $22.50 per 1/4 pound)
These are the highest quality Madagascar beans I’ve reviewed. A spicy Madagascar vanilla aroma, with the brightness of “true” cinnamon. What really differentiates these from other Madagascar beans is their uniform plumpness. Take a look at the first picture — not a scrawny bean in the bunch. All the Beanilla beans were exceptionally oily, and these are no exception. The caviar texture is typical for Madagascar vanilla, but I’m a bit surprised by the moderate caviar yield considering the size of these beans.

PNG Tahitensis (Grade A – $15.99 per 1/4 pound)
Beanilla’s tahitensis are uniformly plump, oily, almost perfect vanilla beans. These are superior, gourmet quality tahitensis, and this is reflected in the price. Sometimes beans are quite thin, flat, and vary in size, these are plump, wide, and uniform. Take a look at the ‘pile’ picture below, this shot is intended to give you a good closeup view of the bean profile. These have the typical tahitensis floral aroma. The caviar is spongy, light, and airy, with a medium-sized yield. Oil from these beans is red/brown — caviar usually leaves a yellowish oil — see the picture. Really amazing vanilla beans.

Indonesia, Tahiti (tahitensis), Uganda, and Hawaii (Grade A)
According to Rob Conley (CEO):
“Soon we will be offering … some other vanilla bean varieties, including Indonesian Vanilla, Tahitian (Tahiti) Vanilla and Ugandan Vanilla. We have also been working closely with farmers from Hawaii for the last 2 years. We are hoping that the crops will be ready to cure by mid 2008 so we can offer genuine Hawaiian vanilla to our online customers.” Rob Conley, Beanilla Trading Co, Letter, received January 21st, 2008.