Origins of Vanilla Plants
The genus Vanilli has a very wide spread, this plant is widely found in almost all over the world, both in the tropical and sub-tropical regions, ranging from tropical regions of America to tropical Asia, Papua New Guinea and West Africa.
In its history the development of vanilla plants was first discovered by the Aztecs, in the forests of Mexico around 1530 ago. Native Mexicans have long known dried vanilla to be used as a refreshing chocolate drink. However, new vanilla entered Europe in 1721. Vanilla finally spread to various countries to date.
Vanilla plants entered Indonesia were brought by the Dutch in 1819. The original purpose of this plant was planted in the Bogor Botanical Gardens to enrich the collection of Botanical gardens initiated by Prof. Dr. Reinwadt. Only around 1864 vanilla was found in the Temanggung area, Central Java. Furthermore, these plants spread to several regions such as Bali, Central Java, East Java, North Sumatra, South Sumatra, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, NTB, NTT and Papua. From 1960 to 1970, the island of Java became the fastest in the process of developing vanilla plants. This gives rise to many centers of vanilla plants which allow vanilla to be exported. So it is natural that vanilla Indonesia is better known as "Java Vanilla Beans".
