Scott Dorsey wrote:
Stefan Goetzinger wrote:

Sadly vanilla has become
very expensive in recent years (bad harvests I was told) so most tea shops
now use rather disgusting artificial vanilla flavors instead.
[...]
Here in the US, we can often get Mexican vanilla. It's definitely
different than the Madagascar stuff, in some ways I think more smooth. And
it's really quite inexpensive. I don't know what availability in Europe
is like but I recommend it.

Interesting. I've never seen it here. I only really know Bourbon vanilla. We
used to buy powdered Bourbon vanilla in small jars at the supermarket but
now it's sold in small 20 gram bags for ever-increasing prices. Last year
it was 15-20 Euros. I don't know if it's getting any better; even those
small bags generally last for many months here.

Stefan

Stefan Goetzinger wrote:

I only really know Bourbon vanilla.
We used to buy powdered Bourbon vanilla in small jars at the supermarket
but now it's sold in small 20 gram bags for ever-increasing prices. Last
year it was 15-20 Euros. I don't know if it's getting any better; even
those small bags generally last for many months here.

I just read up on the topic and it seems that vanilla prices went back to
normal in the second half of 2005. I just hope that the retail prices here
will reflect that.

Stefan