Cortez, astounded by the wonderful drink, demanded the recipe. When Cortez returned to Spain, along with riches plundered from the Aztecs, he also brought back cacao beans and vanilla. The Chocolatl drink was an instant success and extremely popular throughout Europe, especially with the nobility. For the next eighty years vanilla was used only in the chocolate drink. In 1602, Hugh Morgan, apothecary to Queen Elizabeth I, suggested that vanilla could be used as a flavoring by itself.
Vanilla pods, or beans as they are commonly called, are the fruit of an orchid.
Of the thousands of varieties of the orchid, the vanilla plant is the only one with an edible fruit. In the center of the flower is a tube-like stamen that is pale yellow. Because of its shape, the orchid needs to be pollinated in order to produce a pod. Originally this was done by a tiny bee, the melipone, found only in Mexico. Vines were grown in other parts of the world, but without the assistance of the bees no pods developed.