Shade-grown, not cleared
Vines climb living support trees inside existing agroforestry plots, so the canopy — and the shade it makes — stays where it is.
Indonesian Vanilla Bean
Single origin · Java, Indonesia
Vanilla, grown on the vine and cured by hand.
Planifolia beans from smallholder gardens under tropical shade — each flower pollinated by hand on the single morning it opens, then sweated, sun-dried and conditioned for months until the aroma turns deep and boozy.
Tap a pod on the vine
Pod one · The bean
25g Planifolia gourmet
$24.95
Whole Grade A gourmet pods — supple enough to bend around your finger, split with a knife tip and scrape clean. Around 6–8 beans per pack, depending on length.
- Vanilla planifolia, hand-pollinated
- Sun-sweated, slow conditioned
- Vacuum-sealed to hold moisture
Pod two · The cure
Green pods hold no scent at all.
Aroma is made, not harvested. A pod comes off the vine grassy and mute; the cure is what wakes it.
- 01Killing. A short hot-water bath stops the pod from growing and starts the enzymes.
- 02Sweating. Wrapped in blankets by night, opened to the sun by day, for weeks.
- 03Slow drying. Laid on racks in the shade until pliable and deep brown-black.
- 04Conditioning. Months in closed boxes, where the vanillin finally rounds out.
Pod three · Origin
Grown in the shade of somebody's garden.
Sultan vines climb living support trees in smallholder plots across the Indonesian tropics — no cleared land, no monoculture rows. Vanilla shares the canopy with coffee, banana and clove, and the same families tend it from flower to finished bean.
- Species
- Planifolia
- Grade
- A · Gourmet
- Pollination
- By hand
- Canopy
- Shade-grown
Shop
This season's beans
One grade, one size, sealed the week it was conditioned. When a lot is gone, it's gone until the next cure.
How it arrives: vacuum-sealed, so the pods keep their moisture in transit.
25g Planifolia gourmet
$24.95 AUD · per 25 g pack
Grade A gourmet planifolia: pliable, dark and oily, with the caramel-and-tobacco depth a long cure gives. Scrape the seeds for custards and ice cream, then steep the empty pod in milk or sugar — nothing here goes to waste.
- Around 6–8 whole beans
- Hand-pollinated planifolia
- Java, Indonesia
- Vacuum-sealed, small lot
Ships from Australia
Secure checkout
Sold out
Between cures
50 g Planifolia gourmet
Sold out Double pack · 50 g
The same Grade A gourmet pods, twice the weight — for kitchens that go through a pack a month. It only appears when a cure yields enough to set a double pack aside, and this season's lot is already gone.
- Around 13–16 whole beans
- Same grade, same lot
- Sealed the week it's ready
- Harvest list hears first
Prefer not to wait? The 25 g pack is in stock and ships from Australia.
Pastry grade only
Grade A gourmet pods that still bend. Extract-grade splits and dry seconds never go in a pack.
Sealed, not shelved
Vacuum-sealed the week a lot leaves the conditioning boxes, so the moisture you pay for arrives with it.
Bought direct
Straight from the smallholder families who pollinate and cure it, at prices agreed before the season starts.
Shipped from Australia
Stock sits here, not overseas — no customs queue between the cure and your kitchen.
Our story
Nine months on the vine. One morning to get it right.
A vanilla flower opens once, for a few hours, and closes for good. Someone has to be standing there with a sliver of bamboo to lift the hood and press pollen to stigma — bloom by bloom, row by row, every morning of the flowering season.
Sultan Vanilla Bean buys from the families who do that work, at prices agreed before the season starts, and we cure in small lots so nothing is rushed to market half-conditioned. What we ship is what we would keep for our own kitchen: pods that are supple, oily at the seam, and heavy with seed.
“You can taste a hurried cure. It smells like wood instead of cream.”
- Flowering
- 1 day
- On the vine
- 9 mo
- In the cure
- Months
Sourcing & sustainability
Good vanilla needs old trees, shade and patience.
Vanilla is a vine — it cannot stand alone. Growing it well means keeping the forest that holds it up, which is the whole reason we buy the way we do.
Prices set before harvest
Growers know what their green pods are worth before flowering ends, which takes the gamble out of a nine-month crop.
Small lots, plain packing
We cure and pack in small batches, vacuum-sealed for moisture and shipped in paper — no tins, no filler, no plastic tray.
Recipes
Three ways to spend one pod.
Split it, scrape it, then keep going — the spent pod has a second life in sugar, milk or a bottle of rum.
Freezer · 20 min + churn
Speckled vanilla ice cream
Half a pod is enough to freckle a whole litre — steep the husk in the cream as it cools.
Method
- 1. Warm 500 ml cream and 250 ml milk with the scraped seeds and the split pod.
- 2. Whisk 5 yolks with 120 g sugar, temper in the hot cream, cook to a thin custard.
- 3. Chill overnight with the pod still in, then strain and churn.
Oven · 1 hr
Slow-set custard tart
Low heat and a whole pod: the difference between "vanilla flavoured" and vanilla.
Method
- 1. Blind-bake a shortcrust shell until sandy and pale gold.
- 2. Infuse 400 ml cream with one split pod; rest off the heat for 20 minutes.
- 3. Mix with 4 yolks and 60 g sugar, pour into the shell, bake at 140°C until barely set.
Pantry · 8 weeks
House extract & vanilla sugar
The thrifty ending: spent pods become extract, and dried husks become sugar.
Method
- 1. Slit 3 pods lengthways and submerge in 250 ml vodka or light rum.
- 2. Keep dark, shake weekly, and start using at 8 weeks — better at six months.
- 3. Dry any spare husks, blitz with caster sugar and sift for vanilla sugar.
Good to know
Questions we get every harvest.
Storing them, keeping them, and what those white crystals are. If yours isn't here, ask us — we answer these ourselves.
How do I store vanilla beans?
Airtight and out of the light — the vacuum pouch, a zip bag or a sealed jar in a cool cupboard. Not the fridge: cold, damp air invites mould and dulls the aroma. Never a windowsill, and never loose in a spice rack, where they dry out within weeks.
How long will they keep?
Stored properly, well over a year — and they don't fall off a cliff after that. Pods gradually firm up and the aroma concentrates rather than fades. A bean that has stiffened is not a lost bean: steep it in warm cream or milk and it gives up plenty.
There are white crystals on my beans — is that mould?
Almost always the opposite: fine needle-like frost on the pod is crystallised vanillin, and it only forms on beans with a lot of it. Mould looks different — fuzzy, grey-green, in patches — and smells musty rather than sweet. If something smells wrong, send us a photo before you use it.
What does “Grade A gourmet” actually mean?
Grade A is the whole, unsplit, higher-moisture pod — supple enough to wrap around a finger, oily at the seam, heavy with seed. It's the grade you want when the bean is visible in the dish: custards, ice cream, pastry cream. Grade B is drier and thinner, made for extract, where looks don't matter. We only pack Grade A.
How many beans come in a 25 g pack?
Usually 6–8 whole pods. We sell by weight rather than by count because length varies across a hand-picked lot, and a heavier, longer bean is worth more to you than a tidy number on a label.
Can I use the pod after scraping the seeds?
Please do — most of the aroma is in the husk, not the seeds. Steep it in the cream or milk you're heating, then rinse, dry it, and drop it into a jar of sugar or a bottle of vodka. There are three ways to spend one pod further up this page.
Where do you ship, and how fast?
Australia-wide, dispatched from our Australian stock, so there's no customs wait between the cure and your kitchen. Packs go out in flat paper mailers with the vacuum seal intact — rates and delivery estimates are shown at checkout for your address.
Do you sell larger or wholesale quantities?
Sometimes, when a cure yields enough. Kitchens and small producers are welcome to about a lot before it's packed — and the harvest list is where larger packs are announced first.
Contact us
Ask us anything about the beans.
Questions about a lot, an order on its way, or whether these pods suit what you're making — write to us and you'll get a person, not a ticket number. The same people who cure and pack the beans answer the email.
- Within a day or two. We read email in Australian hours, so allow a little longer over a weekend.
- Something wrong with your pods? Send a photo and your order number and we'll sort it out.
- Kitchens and small producers. Tell us the volume you go through and we'll say what the next cure can cover.
Email us
faisalrizal2@yahoo.com Write to us Wholesale enquiry- Based in
- Australia
- Hours
- Mon–Fri, AEST
Rather hear from us first? for a few notes a year when a lot is ready.
The harvest list
Hear when the next cure comes out of the boxes.
A few emails a year from Sultan Vanilla Bean: when a lot is ready, what it tastes like, and how much of it there is.