Thursday TeaDay 3/19/09 Oh say can you smell?

[Chip]

Great TeaDay to everyone. I hope you can stop by and share what is in your cup throughout the day.

Yesterday most reponders were between 0-20% when it came to touch and tea. You can still vote and discuss yesterday's topic.

Today's TeaPoll and discussion topic. On a sensory level, what percentage of your TOTAL tea experience is your sense of smell, including all aspects that smell plays a role? Please share how your sense of smell plays a part in your TOTAL tea enjoyment.

I am looking forward to sharing TeaDay with everyone. Bottoms up TeaFriends!

[Salsero]

Smell is less of a sensation for me than for most, so I put it down at 20%. My olfactory senses seem to have dimmed with time. Of course an enormous amount of what we think of as taste is actually smell, and somehow that part of smell seems to work pretty well for me, but just sniffing with the nose ... I am deficient there.

I wonder why making gyokuro reminds me of cooking vegetables.

[kymidwife]

Thus far, I have only spent 10% on sight and 10% on touch, so I have 80% left to go around for the remaining senses. I rank smell pretty high, but not as high as taste, so I'm giving it 30%.

If a tea tastes very nice but doesn't have a great aroma, I still enjoy it, maybe not quite as much though. If a tea smells lovely and doesn't taste good, I pour it out. There lies the difference for me.

That being said, I love to smell the warming leaves, the finished brew, and even the dry leaves before brewing... all very important parts of the tea experience for me. I just always hope it tastes as good or better than it smells... if not, it's beyond disappointing to me.

Happy Tea Day... off to bed.

Sarah

[Trioxin]

I have an abnormally large collection of fragrances, incense, and scented candles, so scent has always been a big deal to me. Whether its wine or tea, scent is half the experience and can greatly enhance taste.

Scent of the Day ~ Terre D'Hermes Layered with Miller Harris Citron Citron
Tea of the Day ~ Xiaguan FT #5

[omegapd]

30% sounds good to me.

[Victoria]

I have an abnormally large collection of fragrances, incense, and scented candles, so scent has always been a big deal to me. Whether its wine or tea, scent is half the experience and can greatly enhance taste.

Ditto for me.

[tea-guy]

Taking into account that our olfactory senses play a very large roles in how things taste... (hence why having a cold dulls the taste of foods), I voted 70% here.

Try slurping a little bit when you take in your tea. It'll bring out extra aromas by percolating just a little bit, and it'll help some of the nuanced and subtle flavors peek their heads out!


EDIT: In my cup: Kyoto Sakura Festival

[saretta]

For me the sense of smell is 30% of tea (and wine) experience.
At the beginning it was like.."yeah, it smells nice/bad!" but I wasn't sure what kind of smell it was and when I exerienced it. Now I am almost sure that the sense of smell can be improved with training and the experience is much more amusing. The brain is able to store and accumulate a great variety of scents, fragrances, odours... and just brings them back to my attention at the right moment! My favourite scent family: floral and fruity!

This morning in my cup HOUJICHA!

[Riene]

I like the aroma of dry tea leaves, adn that first puff of steam when the boiling water hits the leaves. Mmmm. However, taste still ranks higher.

I'm drinking a tea this morning called "Edinburgh Tea," sent by a friend who was visiting Scotland. It's black, strong, flavorful, a blend I can't quite put a finger on. Lots of Assam in it, though. Good stuff.

[Drax]

I went with 40%. Smell and taste have always been a bit hard to separate for me, so I expect them to be linked pretty well.

I've been on travel the last couple of days and literally had no free time, which is unusual. So I'm taking a slow, late morning today to try to relax a bit, and I'm enjoying a glass of Tai Ping Hou Kui to help out.

Ahhhh!

[Victoria]

In my cup this morning: Lupicia FF Darjeeling

Have a nice day everyone!

[auggy]

I put 40%. Mostly for the smell of the tea as I'm drinking it as I find that impacts what flavors I taste but to some extent the dry leaf as well. The smell doesn't make or break my tea experience, but it can either be a hurdle to overcome or a little extra boost to my enjoyment.

Spearmint + cream in my cup today. I am heavily medicated for my sinus and ear infections (both ears - woo!) so I needed something to help my stomach settle. Go mint!

[Smari]

It's 70% for me because if it smells more like floral/perfume, I steer clear of it.

This morning is a vanilla rooibos kind of morning. Going for ginger peach oolong next.

[brlarson]

50% olfactory for me. My kids used to tease me when eating out because of the amount of time I spent sniffing the juice. The scent of things tells you one story, sometimes the taste of things tells you a different one -- this can be a mark of greatness, like with the best vintages of Laville Haut-Brion -- but taste usually affirms what you smell. Anyway, I like to sniff.

Teaspring's Rou Gui this morning.

[gingkoseto]

I will choose 80%. Just come out of a flue, I know how important smelling is It can't really be separated from tasting.

Some tea (for example many dan cong's are like this), when you smell it, it's fragrant, but not strongly. When you taste it, you taste strong fragrance. However, this may not mean smelling is not as important as tasting. If you compare tasting the aftertaste with your mouth open and with your mouth closed, you may find taste better with mouth closed. That means, smelling (or whatever we call that function of nasal channels) is essential to taste

In my cup now is huang shan mao feng