Vanilla is “a product of time and patience”, says Cristian Garcia Murillo. In 2016 his father trained vines around cacao trees on their farm in El Valle, a town on Colombia’s Pacific coast. Last year Mr Murillo sold 50kg of cured pods, partly supplied by local growers, to restaurants across the country. It is a sweet deal. One kilogram fetches up to 2.5m pesos ($600), more than 100 times what the region’s fishermen net for the same weight of tuna.

Vanilla, an orchid, is native to Central and South America. In the 18th century vines were smuggled from Mexico to Europe and later implanted in Réunion, where a child slave discovered how to hand-pollinate them. Today nearby Madagascar provides 80% of global supply. Because vanilla is still usually hand-pollinated, it is the world’s most expensive spice after saffron. Demand has outstripped supply for years. Buyers are looking for new sources, such as Colombia.

The rainforest around El Valle hosts Vanilla planifolia, a popular species. In the past eight years some 200 vanilla plantations, managed by community councils, have opened with support from Swissaid, a charity. Their produce provides much-needed income. Around two-thirds of people in Chocó, the region where El Valle is located, earn less than $3.50 a day.

El Valle’s planifolia is genetically distinct from the common sort, and remains pollinated by bees, which gives it a special scent. Alejandro Henao Pérez, the director in Colombia for MANE, a French fragrance giant, recently bought samples to test. He says the vanilla’s allure also lies in its green credentials, which appeal to many consumers. As the vine wraps around trees, it provides locals with an economic incentive not to chop them down.

Production will need to scale up fast. Mane says it would need at least one tonne of dried pods per year, more than double what the company run by El Valle’s local councils expects to buy from producers this year. More investment is needed for training, quality control and marketing. Getting the pods out of Chocó, which has few roads, is expensive. And genetic engineers elsewhere are working on a self-pollinating variety. Still, for Alejandro Álvarez of Selva Nevada, an organic ice-cream maker in the capital, Bogotá, the Pacific bean’s “spectacular flavour” wafts away such concerns.