For Colleen Smith, the inspiration for a vanilla paste business was a word from on high.

“I was watching a TikTok video of a lady making vanilla extract,” Ms Smith said. “Then the Holy Spirit dropped the idea of making and selling vanilla paste into my spirit.”

Vanilla paste incorporates ground vanilla pods and beans, often blended with extract and mixed with thickeners to create a paste. Flecks of vanilla bean pod give it a more intense flavour than vanilla extract.

It is used for everything from cakes to meat rubs to candle making and cosmetics.

The process is a lot faster than making vanilla extract, which can take a year before completion.

When Ms Smith got the idea, she had not baked since her children were little and had never even tasted vanilla bean paste.

Still, she went down the research rabbit hole learning all she could about vanilla, a member of the orchid family.

“Where would I get it?” she said. “How would I get it here? Everything was new to me because I have never brought in food before.”

Ms Smith, a dog groomer, imported some pods and experimented. She quickly learnt that making vanilla bean paste was easy.

She was encouraged to see queries on local social media from people looking to find it in the community.

“It is hard to get it in Bermuda,” she said. “I do not know why. You cannot grow it here without a greenhouse. The island does not have the right climate.”

It thrives in a tropical climate and requires a lot of cultivation.

Ms Smith heard of a store that was selling it in Bermuda.

“I went and got some,” she said. “Mine is better.”

Ms Smith launched Simply Vanilla Delight last month at a Christmas market held at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute. She never felt any doubts.

“The Holy Spirit gave me the idea, so I was confident it would be successful,” she said. “People who had seen my advertisements on Facebook came down. It was amazing. I felt such a rush.”

So far, the biggest challenge has been importing the vanilla bean pods.

“It is not difficult getting the pods here,” she said. “What is difficult is getting all departments on the same page so I can get my stuff in a reasonable amount of time. It has to go through customs and through the lab at the Department of Environmental Resources. It is a plant and has to be checked over for pests.”

In the short time Simply Vanilla Delight has been running, it has been doing well thanks to social media advertising.

Ms Smith has been contacted by home chefs, professional chefs and also people who make products such as cosmetics or candles, which also sometimes require vanilla bean paste to create a certain smell.

She has also been offering her products at Christmas fairs and markets around the island, where there has been a lot of interest.

Along the way she has learnt more than she ever thought she would about vanilla bean pods.

“There are different types that come from different regions” she said.

Eighty per cent of the world’s vanilla comes from Madagascar, but there are also varieties from Uganda, Mexico and Kenya.

“Vanilla from different regions has slightly different flavours,” she said. “Some is more chocolatey than others.”

There are also rare varieties of vanilla that Ms Smith would like to locate.

One of the least common is Vanilla Pompona endemic to the Amazon region of Peru.

This plant has larger pods and a unique flavour, but is uncommon in the commercial market because the trees have such a low yield.