BEYOND VANILLA
Growing the vine divine on the Garden Isle WORDS MARY TROY JOHNSTON
I
t is the kind of story that one imagines about paradise. Lisa Parker and Roland Barker, husband and wife, are co-owners of Tiny Isle, a sweets company, and their more recent enterprise, The Vanillery of Kauai. The Vanillery supplies their homemade vanilla extract to their chocolate products. How their story with vanilla began resembles something one would read in an old-fashioned children’s fairy tale book. Over many decades ago, likely in the 1960s, a vine was planted on the mauka (mountain) side of Kapa‘a on the east side of Kaua‘i. Whether she knew it at the time, the auspicious gardener was making a gift to future generations. Some 14 years ago, Lisa and Roland came to Kaua‘i with the idea of caring for the land his grandmother had passed on to the family, the same woman who likely had planted the “vine divine.” Roland describes his grandmother, “She was an avid gardener, loved gardening in the tropics and would have enjoyed something exotic like vanilla.” Having thrived in isolation, Roland estimates about 30 years, the vine growing up a tree was discovered by the new caretakers of the land. Unfortunately, at least at first, Lisa and Roland “knew nothing about how to propagate the plant.” Still, they followed their instincts. He says, “...we placed lengths of vine under several trees to see where it liked to grow.”
