Rapid Detection of Vanilla Bean Extract Adulteration with Tonka Bean Extract with No Chromatography or Sample Preparation

The production of vanilla beans is quite expensive, since it is a very labor intensive process and harvesting takes place two to three years after planting. Due to this, the price of natural vanilla bean extract is quite expensive. It is quite often adulterated with cheaper tonka bean extract, which smells and tastes like vanilla bean extract due to the presence of a compound called coumarin1. Since coumarin is absent in vanilla bean extracts, it can be used as a marker compound to detect its adulteration with tonka bean extracts.