There are many different modes of preparing vanilla, but for brevity’s sake one alone will be described; it is probably the simplest, and appears to be as successful as any other. About 400 of the longest pods are placed in a basket and plunged into hot water (190° F.) for ten seconds; this is repeated twice, the dips being increased to twelve and fifteen seconds respectively, with intervals of half a minute between each two. After the third dip, when most of the water has drained off, the pods are placed in a wooden box or barrel lined with blankets, and closely covered up with the same material. When lot 1 is finished, lot 2 is similarly treated, and for them the water may be a few degrees cooler, or the dipping times a trifle shortened; and so also with lot No. 3, while No. 4 may be treated as No. 2. Perhaps it is as well to add that 190° F. is not an absolutely essential heat, but is about as high as it is safe to go; while even the longest pods may be adequately treated in water at 170° F. if they are kept in it long enough. An experienced preparer will be guided more by the appearance of the pod after each dip than by any fixed formula. Where small quantities are dealt with less heat is needed, and the above figures are given for a boiler 22 inches in diameter by 12 inches deep. It is best to have good-sized boxes or barrels to sweat the pods in, those holding 2,000 or 3,000 each being preferable, for the more pods there are together the better heat is retained. The lots (1, 2, 3, and 4) should be kept apart, a fold of blanket being laid on each if all go into one box. By the following morning they should have changed to chocolate or puce color, and are then ready to spread on the drying shelves; but if there is a large number together, and the heat has been well kept in, they may be left for another twenty-four hours.

A curing house for preparing a crop up to 2,000 pounds (dry) may have the following dimensions and fixings: 30 feet long, 15 feet broad, 13 feet in height of walls. It should be divided into four compartments, two on the ground and two above, each being approximately 15 by 15 and 6¹⁄₂ feet high. One compartment on the ground floor is used as a hot room, having a flue 2 feet wide covered with sheet iron running through the center. If the heat is too intense from this, sand may be sprinkled on top to reduce it. Above this flue and around two sides of the hot chamber tiers of shelves are fixed 6 inches apart, on which the pods are spread to dry. The shelves may be conveniently made of laths, on top of which mats or canvas can be laid; or fine-meshed wire netting would serve the same purpose, perhaps, better than anything else. The entire arrangement will be more easily understood by reference to fig. 2. Compartment No. 1 is the hot room. Dotted lines in it and in Nos. 3 and 4 indicate where shelves are fixed; D, door; W, window, etc. The table is used for sorting green pods on, and is otherwise useful at final measuring time and when the pods are tied into packets. No. 3 is above No. 1, and is also a warm room, some heat from No. 1 coming up through the floor. The clear spaces in Nos. 2 and 4 have fiber mats spread on them when required, and on these the pods are handled and sorted as they progress in curing. The worker, sitting on the floor, keeps the four lots of pods—long, medium, short, and split—distinct on the shelves. This facilitates the sorting, the short and split pods needing to be examined sooner and oftener than the longer and sound sorts, as they dry more rapidly.

A good average heat for the hot chamber is 110° F. A few degrees more or less does not matter, but pods are apt to dry too quickly if the heat is much greater. The slower the process the more uniform and better is the result. As they begin to turn soft and show longitudinal wrinkles the pods are removed from room 1 to 3, and after reaching a certain degree of flexibility they pass on to the shelves in room 4 and there finish their curing. If kept too long in either a hot or a warm room the thin ends of pods shrink too quickly, and this is to be avoided. In a large crop there are always some inferior, ill-nourished pods, in which this occurs, but the last remark will be useful to a beginner. When fully cured the pods are much wrinkled and pliable, bending easily around one’s finger. There is considerable difference in the degree of dryness preferred by different curers. If the contents move easily all along a pod, without any unevenness being noticed when it is drawn between the finger and thumb, it is nearly dry enough; but the right stage can only be learned by experience.

When finished the pods are well wiped with bits of soft flannel and then kept in boxes with close-fitting lids. It is better to sort them roughly into lengths as each day’s lot is put away and tie up the various sizes in bundles of about 200 each if the numbers allow of it, for they have to be examined once or twice a week in order to remove the molded ones, and this is much more quickly done with bundles than when they are loose. Moreover, it makes the ultimate accurate measuring easier. Either at this time or later the different qualities are more exactly separated, none but faultless pods, without scar or defect in curing, being allowed in the first quality. The rest rank as seconds, etc. The split pods and the pods that have been cut on account of mold are also kept distinct. It is well to keep a crop at least three or four months before marketing. By that time nearly all shaky pods that are liable to mold will have shown themselves. All are then measured and tied up in neat bundles of 50 pods each of even length, the pods varying in length not more than one-eighth of an inch.

The general sightliness of a marketed crop has much influence on the price it will bring, and whatever whims buyers get into their heads the producer must conform to or suffer in pocket. Bundle tying is something of an art, and a deft hand at it is valuable. Sixteen or thereabouts of the shapeliest pods in each 50 are selected for the outside; the rest are tied up as a core, being kept in position with a few turns of the fiber tying cord, while the chosen 16 are carefully placed round them. The bundle is tied in either three places, near each end and in the middle, or in two places, an inch or more from the ends, according to the length of bundle. The core-holding string is pulled out before the final tie is fixed. Two-tie packets are boxed as they are. With those of three ties buyers prefer that the end cords be removed before packing, to enable them to examine the bundles inside and see if the contents are of uniform quality. If kept tied some time before being packed the bundles set, as it were, and retain their neat shape. The tin boxes used here for packing vanilla in measure 12¹⁄₂ by 8¹⁄₂ inches in width, are 4¹⁄₂ inches deep, and hold about 12 pounds. Each box has a label pasted on it which bears the grower’s trade-mark, the length and number of packets, their quality, and net weight, and a similar label is put inside. As some chemical action is set up when vanilla rests in contact with tin or iron, thin vegetable parchment paper is placed in the boxes to keep the two apart. The lids are then sealed close with pasted paper and the tins packed in wooden cases, 6 in each, and thus dispatched to market.