Vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world, after saffron.

Vanilla comes from the seed pods of a climbing orchid native to Mexico, where it was originally pollinated by a specific local bee species. Outside that native range, the flowers have to be hand-pollinated one by one, on the single day each year they’re open, by workers using a small stick or needle to transfer pollen themselves.

That labor, combined with a curing process that takes several months to develop the pods’ characteristic flavor and aroma, makes vanilla extraordinarily expensive to produce relative to almost any other crop. Madagascar now grows most of the world’s supply using this hand-pollination method, and price swings in the vanilla market — driven by weather, politics, and crop cycles — can rival those of precious commodities.