“Vanilla” the subjective experience can be caused by any one of dozens of aromatic organic compounds. The Vanilla Orchid seed pod (not a bean), when ripened and cured properly, contains over 200 aromatics, many of which contribute to the subjective experience of “Vanilla” to varying degrees. However, Vanilla Orchids are… well, Orchids, which means they’re precious little darlings and a pain in the ass to grow, hence the low supply of the pods. Ripe vanilla fruit accounts for less than 15% of all Vanilla consumed annually.
From whence the rest, you ask?
Enter Vanillin, so named because it is foremost of these compounds in producing the aroma and flavor of the vanilla experience. This tasty little aromatic is actually a metabolic intermediary in all sorts of plant metabolisms, including but not limited to most woody trees.
During the development of Industrial Paper manufacturing, during a step which involves taking the pulverized and pulped wood fibers and washing them of the various compounds a living tree needs but a sheet of paper does not, one of the results was a rich, brown, pleasant-smelling, organic spirit. It was discovered that Vanillin could be mass-produced from this substance, and so Artificial Vanilla was born, which makes up the remaining 5/6ths of the vanilla consumed worldwide each year.
See, here’s the thing. Humans, like most Animals, can’t smell things that have no relevancy to our lives, and there’s correlations between attraction and aversion to certain compound classes and the lived experiences of our Ancestors. Smell is a deeply chemical sense, and we wouldn’t find Vanilla pleasant unless that aroma had some sort of universal relevance to Human Survival. Our ancestral environment was riparian woodlands.
There’s Vanilla in decaying leaf litter.
There’s Vanilla in rich soil.
Old books smell good because one of the products of the decaying wood of the paper is Vanilla.
The Library is an olfactory echo of the Forest Primeval do you see my vision
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