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What are the "scents of your people?"
Hello dear people,
This post was inspired by @wise's post "What are the sounds of your people"
But I'd like to hear you describe the scent, aroma, fragrance, or any kind of smell that you associate with yours. Maybe there's some overlap with ~food, but it's not just limited to foods and drinks. I think pretty much anything deep in our memories might be tied to the impressions of scents. Maybe it's the soil after night rain, the interior of a car, the book aroma of a library, or a pet, a person... let me know.
I'll be posting mine as a comment.
For me, it's the aroma of delicate, green tea leaves of our local produce. I'll prefer whole-leaf teas to ground leaves in teabags any time -- the full leaves deliver the aroma more gradually. As the steam arise, I am reminded of one and many damp and lush springs that I experienced. The freshly harvested, roasted, and dried green leaves preserve the distinct, astringent smell. Gentle but distinct -- that's the character.
Damn. You would be great at writing those little bits of text on the backs of food boxes.
Not exchanging them for Big Food money. No :)
During my time living in an area where I was a minority, I was repeatedly informed that white people smell like rancid butter and sour milk.
Not quite as romantic as the other posts, but there you go.
Ouch. That was brutal.
Speaking of body odours, I've heard extremely racist talk uttered by "grown up" family members and they always disturb me. It's true that body odours can vary from one ethnic group to another, I've noticed that, but so what? Humans smell like humans.
People enjoy putting down other people to make themselves feel higher. Dehumanizing other ethnicities, and further your own on a pedestal.
What was the dominant ethinc group in your area?
Rain, salt air and night-blooming flowers. That’s the smell that greeted my future wife when she moved to the SF Bay Area, and that smell is what reassured her she was making the right choice.
Amusingly, it was the same experience that convinced my mom to turn her vacation into a permanent stay 50 years ago.
This is so lovely! Wow <3
The smell of smoking oil and burnt rice... Ah, my housemate is awake.
I've been to the Mediterranean only once, and it was the opposite end, on the Greek coast. I don't recall the... rancid, but I guess you must be have a better sense of scenting different seas, having started you life near one.
The sea here smells different when you're crossing it on a vapur, especially wintertime. It feels like that's what fresh air is, and it feels like it's unique to here. It feels like it comes from afar, both in time and in space. I hate my city for a million reasons, but the sea here is just the best it can be. It comes in through your nose and freshens up every single cell on its way to your lungs; it's more of a unique feeling than a certain odour.
Also, rakı has a mercilessly intriguing smell. It smells like "you'll have fun while you're on your chair chatting to your companions, but when you'll get up on your feet, you'll feel a sweet remorse". The minty smell of anise and that of alcohol combined and chilled-af can get you tipsy just by smelling it. It's perfect when chilled, impossibly good with a couple ice cubes.
Edit: And, coffee. I don't think it requires any explanation, but it smells slightly different here.
Thanks for the really emotional description, the fresh feeling as if in every cell!
I tried raki once, without ice. It was after some good amount of wine already... I was too tipsy to take good notice of the scent. But what memory... with those good people. We danced off our energies that night. Now I want to try raki again, starting with the olfactory faculty intact. But that must wait after I get off the meds completely.
You're welcome! I hope you get well soon!
Thank you so much. You're very kind. It means a lot to me to hear you say so.
These are the smell of breeze at warm humid night when crickets are chirping, the smell of dust being knocked down by first droplets of thunderstorm rain at a hot day, the smells of rural railroad and cool deep metro stations, and also the unique undescribable scent at the staircase in grandma's apartment building. These are probably among the largest strokes on the smell canvas of my life. Food surprisingly doesn't play a big role here, maybe because its smell is volatile and can be reproduced, and I'm not a huge eater.
Your poetic description of the scents assures me the importance of those memories for you. Thank you for sharing!
Balsam and woodsmoke - smells like Maine to me. I went on a solo road trip there for my first ever vacation. I drove to and through parts of the Maine coast and headed inland as well. I went in the fall so the air was so crisp and clean. This was over twenty years ago and whenever I smell either of those scents, it takes me right back to Maine.