Day 7: Thrilla at the Villa Vanilla Spice Plantation

The Bryant Sustainability Marketing Group has now made its way from Monteverde to the beautiful coast of Manuel Antonio where we have spent the last two nights of the trip at the luxurious HotelParador. Parador is one of ten hotels in Costa Rica to receive the 5-Leaf rating from the Sustainable Tourism Program, the highest rating a hotel can receive! We were lucky enough to get a behind the scenes tour at Hotel Parador’s sustainable practices from the lovely Silvia. On this tour we saw their back offices as well as the kitchen and learned all about their sustainable efforts. The most interesting sustainable practice we found is not only that they reuse all of their water but also collect all rain water. This water is use for laundry, the pools and the water the guests use. The receptionists also reuse all their paper and once it cannot be used anymore it is sent out to be made into new paper. Parador is on the Central Pacific coast of the rainforest and has various nature walks within the property, so there is no surprise when you encounter an exotic animal crossing your path on the 12-acre property.

On the last day the Bryant Sustainability Marketing Group toured the Villa Vanilla Spice Plantation located in the fertile hills above the city of Manuel Antonio. Villa Vanilla is a sustainable biodynamic spice farm that grows vanilla, black and white pepper, Ceylon cinnamon, cocoa, turmeric and allspice. Here we were led on a tour by Gisele who has been working on the plantation for close to four years. She let us smell all the spices while those brave enough tasted the variety of spices that where grown on the plantation. She explained to us the very long process of growing and extracting vanilla from a vanilla plant which takes close to a full year.

The group was then led down the Epiphyte Trail which brought us to a little villa where Gisele made all of us a few treats. We got to try some cinnamon water, cheesecake, cinnamon ice cream with a chocolate cookie, and finally hot chocolate with vanilla or cayenne peppers. All of the food was completely homemade from the spices on the farm and everyone went for the hot chocolate with cayenne peppers. We were all surprised at how good the taste was! Gisele then added vanilla to each of our hot chocolates and a chocolate chip cookie to really extract the taste.

Fun Facts:

• In 2000 the Villa Vanilla Plantation was the only certified Biodynamic plantation in all of central America. A biodynamic farm is completely self-sustainable and is completely derived from the farm.
• The cocoa bean was used as currency prior to the development of Colones (Costa Rican currency).
• Vanilla is the only edible fruit out of the 35,000 orchid species that are native to Central America, southeast Mexico, the West Indies, and northern South America.
• Vanilla is the second-most expensive spice due to the labor-intensive growing and cultivation process.
• Vanilla is a vine and needs a host tree to grow on.

 Written By: Armaan Kapoor and Sean Foote

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