Vanilla plant, Palmarium reserve, Madagascar

Here it is, Madagascar's green gold, or black gold once the process completes. Vanilla, as a spice, is the result of the very laboursome, complicated, risky and unnatural processing of a particular orchid species: Vanilla planifolia.

Vanilla plants are hand-pollinated by people. Once grown and harvested, they need a very lengthy treatment where for dozens of days, they are laid out in the sun to dry. The dry time needs to be a few hours only, so they can't be kept in the sun. At the end of the process, the outcome is a very dark to pure black stick fruit. Darker is one sign to tell quality.

Vanilla is always super expensive but at times is even more expensive, such as when crops fail. Also, powerful middleman traders may add to the price. As a result, high quality vanilla is currently so expensive that many manufacturers use replacement products. For example, when ordering vanilla ice cream, it's unlikely for it to contain actual vanilla. Vanilla is currently so valuable that large scale farmers need security guards at night to watch over their land.

The above is a dramatically simplified version of cultivation, in reality it's much more complex, above all, a very unnatural and sensitive process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla#Cultivation

Vanilla is used in unfortunate ways in the English language, suggesting "plain". There's nothing plain about it, it's an explicit, strong and unique aroma and taste. But ah well.