Question of the Day: Why does coffee never taste as good as it smells?

              Good Day Humboldt County!

What’s more stimulating than the smell of coffee in the morning? Nothing, as far as I’m concerned.

The smell of freshly ground coffee beans gives me the strength to crawl out of bed in every morning.

I always wondered why when drinking the coffee it didn’t taste as good as it smelled. Well, I found out why: 

“ For many it is the first highlight of the day, just when you need it most: the scent of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the house first thing in the morning. But scientists claim to have solved the mystery of why coffee never tastes as good as it smells.

The act of swallowing the drink sends a burst of aroma up the back of the nose from inside the mouth, activating a “second sense of smell” in the brain that is less receptive to the flavor, causing a completely different and less satisfying sensation.

In contrast, some cheeses smell revolting but taste delicious because their whiff seems more pleasant to us when passing out of the nose than in, experts explained. Speaking at the British Science Festival in Aberdeen Prof Barry Smith, of the University of London, said: “We have got two senses of smell.

“One sense is when you inhale things from the environment into you, and the other is when the air comes out of you up the nasal passage and is breathed out through the nose.” The phenomenon is down to the fact that, although we have sensors on our tongue, eighty per cent of what we think of as taste actually reaches us through smell receptors in our nose.” (Read the rest here)

Time for me to walk on down the road…