Reunion is a French Island in the Southern Indian Ocean and part of the Vanilla Island Group.
On Reunion and in Le Bocage in Sainte-Suzanne lends its bucolic setting to the vanilla festival for 5 days. This year, vanilla shares the poster with the sharp bourbon coffee and cocoa. Producers, artists’ associations and fairgrounds are all in a celebratory mood from 08 to 12 August.
The first magistrate of the city, Maurice Gironcel, is not proud to recall that the adventure of vanilla began in Sainte-Suzanne in 1841, when a small slave named Edmond Albius discovered the process of fertilization of this orchid, imported from Mexico, only edible orchid, considered a spice.
Reunion, each year, produces about 4 tons of black vanilla and 25 tons of green pods. They are about ten producers distributed between North and East to cultivate these vines in undergrowth, under-greenhouse or in interlayer with the cane. The production is however random said Dominique Delmas, the farmer left the lands of Sainte-Rose last March where he was in “lease à ferme”, taking with him a large part of the 3,500 feet he cultivated there since 10 years. While waiting for new land on Saint-André, he maintains for the moment his vanilla and cuttings in pots on a plot in front of his home. Dominique Delmas who produces and transforms himself about 400 kilos of pods at each harvest will be present on the stands of the Bocage.“The festival is also an opportunity to support all those who work for the sector,” said Maurice Gironcel, and “even if the other islands of the Indian Ocean produce, Reunion is the cradle of this plant. We fight so that Edmond Albius, like Maloya, is recognized as intangible heritage of Unesco. ”
A new centre is also being renovated in Bellevue, it will be part, once completed a memory circuit. In the meantime, the scented pod recognized as one of the best vanilla in the world will be honored for 5 days
