26/07/2025
IF YOU DIDNâT KNOW, ITâS BECAUSE THEY DIDNâT WANT US TO KNOW â BUT NOW YOU DO.
Ever had vanilla ice cream and wondered who made it possible?
Not who sold it.
Not who bottled the extract.
But who figured out how to grow vanilla outside of Mexico â where the native pollinating bees donât exist?
That personâŠ
was a 12-year-old enslaved Black boy.
đ1841. RĂ©union Island. A French colony in the Indian Ocean.
His name? Edmond Albius.
French colonists had imported vanilla plants from Mexico â but couldnât figure out how to make them bear fruit.
Vanilla orchids bloom for only a few hours. In Mexico, a special bee does the work.
But on Réunion?
No bee. No pollination. No vanilla.
Botanists tried. Plantation owners tried.
They all failed.
Until Edmond stepped in.
With no formal education and no freedom, Edmond discovered a method using a thin stick and his thumb.
He gently lifted the orchidâs flap, pressed its reproductive parts together â and hand-pollinated the flower.
đĄIt was brilliant. Fast. And it worked.
Suddenly, vanilla could grow across the tropics â on RĂ©union, on Madagascar, and beyond.
To this day, most of the worldâs vanilla is still pollinated using Edmondâs method.
Yet while vanilla became a billion-dollar industry, Edmond Albius died in poverty, his genius overlooked.
No statues.
No fortune.
No justice.
But every time you taste vanilla â in ice cream, cake, perfume, or your morning latte â you taste the legacy of a young Black boy who changed agriculture foreverâŠ
âŠwith a flick of his thumb and the courage to try.
âđŸ They may not have written his name in every textbook â
But we can speak it now.