Our story
One family, one slow crop.
Vanilla Farmer Bali is not a brand that was planned. It is what Gustu built when there was nothing else to do, and what his family still does by hand, every day.
When everything stopped
No guests, no work, and a piece of land.
When the pandemic closed Bali, the island went quiet. The work that families here live from, the guests, the drivers, the small shops, simply stopped.
Gustu had no other work to go back to. What he did have was his mother's family land in Pandak Bandung, between the rice fields. His father comes from half an hour away; this is his mother's village. So he started something that would take years to pay off: he planted vanilla.
Learning a slow crop
Three years before the first flower.
Vanilla is a climbing orchid. It needs drainage, it needs trees to hold on to, and above all it needs shade: in full sun the leaves burn. Gustu lets the vines climb dadap trees, whose leaves used to feed the family's cows. A young cutting can take two to three years before it flowers for the first time.
In those years Gustu learned everything by doing: which trees give the right shade, how wet the ground can be, how to cure a bean so it stays soft and fragrant. Visitors who grow vanilla themselves now come to ask him.
A family business
Every bean passes through the same hands.
Gustu, Monica and the family do it all themselves. They pollinate in the morning, pick the ripe pods, cure them at home, sort them by length, seal the bags and put on the red sticker with their own phone number.
When guests come, they walk with them through the garden. Afterwards there is a drink, something sweet, and time for every question.
What comes next
Cacao between the vanilla.
Cows no longer pay, so the dadap trees are losing their second job. Gustu's plan: grow cacao between the vanilla. The cacao trees give the shade the vines need, and one day a second harvest.
The young cacao is still small. It needs another year and a half, maybe two, before it can take over from the dadap. As Gustu says: we don't know what is going on in the future. We just try.
Hear it from him
The story, in Gustu's voice.
Recorded on the farm in October 2026. Sound on. Gustu speaks English; the subtitles are his own words.
Small on purpose
Few people find this place. That's the good part, and the hard part.
Because hardly anyone knows about it, the farm stays local and calm. You will not meet a tour bus here.
But a small farm also feels every dry season. Visitors and the beans they take home are what keep it going.
“We are happy to meet you and we can get some knowledge too.”
Gustu, answering a guest on Google