Vanilla Beans on Ebay?

[TheBrumstead]

Has anyone bought vanilla beans on Ebay? I'd love to use them more in baking and I read on a canning blog that she gets them all the time. It looks like there are two main sellers. They are a heck of a lot cheaper than in the stores!

 

[Happy Chooks]

I haven't, but I'd like to know too.

 

[silkiechicken]

I got mine from JR Mushroom and Specialties through amazon. They smelled awesome.

 

[flgardengirl]

I have bought some before to make homemade vanilla for baking. Just make sure to watch the postage/shipping charges on some of the sellers. I saw one charging like $25 dollars! It should only be a few bucks to ship beans they hardly wiegh anything, especially dried. The person I bought from some last time gave free Tahitian beans if you bought the bourbon beans. I can't remember the seller's name but it wasn't a bad deal and the beans worked great for vanilla.

 

[TheBrumstead]

Quote:
Yeah, that is one of the top two (I think it's the top, actually). I was looking at their 10 Extract or Grade A Tahitian beans, and with shipping it's like $5.

 

[BettyR]

I order from this company every year at Christmas time. Their products and service are excellent.

http://www.theposter.com/vanilla2.html

 

[flgardengirl]

I went to ebay and looked and it is the same seller...vanillaproducts. I bought some one year and gave them as gifts in a little sort of kit with a recipe on how to make your own homemade vanilla extract and also gave a few fancy bottles, personalized lables, and a gift card to buy the vodka because I didn't want to send vodka through the mail LOL.
I should order some more beans so I can make some more vanilla extract in time for baking season.

If you want them mostly for cooking, the gourmet beans are supposed to be the good ones to use. If you want them for extract then its the extract beans. I bought several different kinds of beans and they all seemed pretty vanillia-y to me so you could probably use any of them for anything. The Tahitian beans, however, seemed to be more of a fruity floral than the regular vanilla so might impart a different flavor when you are cooking with them.

 

[TheBrumstead]

I'm really unsure which ones to get... I'm going to start making jam soon and the recipes I have call for vanilla beans. Maybe I'll get both...

 

[Vepla]

I always get my vanilla beans from olivenation.com (they are the same company that owns JR Mushrooms and Specialties).
They have free shipping!

Their beans are the freshest, most fragrant I have ever used. Just delicious.

Here is the link:

http://www.olivenation.com/item-84/Bourbon-madagascar-vanilla-beans.asp


They have other vanilla as well, (Tahitian, etc.) but I recommend the Bourbon from Madagascar.
Enjoy!

 

[silkiechicken]

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That is exactly what I got a pound of! It is soo good!