Vanilla
Vanilla, a bean produced by vine-growing orchids, originated in southern North America. First cultivated by Mesoamericans, Europeans spread it to different tropical areas in the late Fourth World.
#Human relations
In its original bioregion, the vanilla orchid relied on a specific bee (now extinct) for pollination, and a specific mycorrhizal fungi for seeds to germinate. As a result, growing vanilla requires significant human investment. Humans must reproduce the plant by cutting, then check every day to see if the flowers have bloomed. As the flowers bloom for one day at most, they must then rush to hand-pollinate them with tiny sticks. Gathering the ripe vanilla beans also takes extensive time and energy; each fruit ripens in its own time, requiring daily harvest. Then they must cure the beans, which involves several different stages of processing, taking up to a year.
As a result, although vanilla grows well in the tropical climate that now extends across the entire globe, few people of the Fifth World have ever tasted it. Those lucky few who have use vanilla sparingly as a spice to flavor foods (most commonly desserts) and as a scent in perfumes.
#Vanilla People
To truly focus on their relationship with vanilla, a community must commit itself to gardening and the village life that entails. Vanilla can shape a community in a number of unique ways, though. Some examples include:
Growing vanilla generally involves swidden cultivation. While not necessarily unsustainable, this technique can easily fall out of balance in a disastrous way. Communities in the Fifth World who use swidden cultivation often have a number of ways in which they strictly control reproduction, including a variety of methods of birth control. These communities place special emphasis on monitoring the health of the forest and ensuring that it properly regenerates.
As vanilla vines grow on trees, they lend themselves to partnering in a guild with any number of trees. It makes sense to grow vanilla vines on trees that produce fruit or beans that taste good with vanilla, and communities that do grow vanilla will often grow them in a guild with coconut trees, cocoa trees, and coffee bushes. However, they can also grow the vines on banana trees, or even just poles close to the village. Due to the time-intensive nature of vanilla cultivation, they will likely grow the vines on smaller trees closer to the village, so they can more easily reach the flowers and fruits when they need to.
A community specializing in relationship with vanilla will likely define themselves first and foremost as gardeners, and possibly as caretakers of plant species that might die off without human assistance. Their ancestors may have purposely seeded a climate change-wracked world with tropical plants that could now grow in places they never could before. They may have partnered with the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, or some other project meant to preserve a diversity of plant life. They may think of hand-pollinating vanilla orchids as a sort of penance or reminder of what the last world's destruction cost them, remembering the many extinct species of pollinators that once did work like this, and knowing that the responsibility of keeping the vanilla orchids now falls to them.
A community specializing in relationship with vanilla prides itself on its ability to grow such a rare and delicious spice. They have certainly passed down the secrets to vanilla cultivation and curing from generation to generation. Communities for miles around may know them as the only source of this almost-mythical spice. They can surely demand a high price in trade for vanilla beans. They may produce many traders themselves, or they may simply host many traders who come in search of vanilla beans. They may leverage their status as a source of vanilla to become major political power players in their area. One way or another, vanilla people likely have many other luxuries -- and much knowledge of places near and far.
One thing you can say about a community specializing in relationship with vanilla: they care deeply about food, and likely have more than a bit of a sweet tooth. Other communities probably know them as impressive gourmands, especially when it comes to desserts. At festivals, everyone wants to try some of their goodies -- and they almost certainly love feeding people. Vanilla people will probably go to great lengths for a truly astounding meal, digging up rare white truffles or even traveling for months on rumors that bees in a certain mountain produce the absolute best honey. Of course, the stories sound as good as the food tastes, and everyone will get a chance to hear about it as they feast.