Page 20 - #57 English

coffee knowledge
Story/ Xiaofeng Wang

COFFEE AND SENSE OF
SMELL

Why some people cannot help grabbing freshly baked bread while walking past a bakery?
Why other people, who originally did not plan to, end up getting a cup of coffee when walking
into a coffee shop? How easy is it for people to resist the enchanting scent of flowers and leave
the flower shop without a bunch of roses? The scent of cosmetics and perfumes in department
stores, the smell of paper in bookstores… The unique scent associated with a certain space not
only becomes part of our memory regarding that space, but also affects our consumption expe-
rience. Olfactory sensation gives us the very first impression of an object when we touch or taste
it for the first time. This perception might not always be unbiased, but tends to dominate.
In forests, animals are able to search distant prey by smell. People who have been away from
home for a long time feel relieved the moment they return home, perhaps due to the familiar
odor. A couple often close their eyes to sense the scent of each other. Olfaction is related to
memory and imagination: people relies on smell to judge invisible or untouchable objects, the
benchmark of which happens to originate from memory and imagination.

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