Lessons from Anosmia: Smell and Taste

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Baisao
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Thu Dec 28, 2017 10:12 pm

I completely (and temporarily) lost my ability to smell last week. While it was a troubling in the moment, I used the experience to observe the intersection of taste and smell.

When I say that I lost my ability to smell, I mean that it was one hundred percent gone: I could breathe fine through my nose but even the muskiest deodorant or most noxious incense smelled like nothing at all. Oddly, I couldn't even evoke a memory of an aroma except as an intellectual abstraction. I would normally think "cut grass" and smell it as though it were in the room with me. With anosmia, it is just that smell that is "cut grass". Even my spacial sense was impacted since I used aromas to inform me of my whereabouts, who is around me, what happened in a space before I entered it, etc. It was disorienting being unable to detect scents.

Because this was caused by an injury to my sinuses, a result from a bad case of influenza, it did not disable my ability to taste. However, it was immediately apparent that our taste buds play a minor role in what we perceive as taste. This will not surprise many of you, and I knew the following intellectually, however, it is quite a different thing to experience it firsthand.

I could taste: sour, salty, savory, bitter, and sweet. I could taste these by degrees, such as if something is more or less salty than another item. I could feel astringency on my palate, but flavor was relegated to just those five sensations: sour, salty, savory, bitter, and sweet.

To make this into an analogy, imagine an aroma wheel with a compass superimposed over it. Whereas you could "taste" butter with such precision that you could find it at 156-160° on our aroma wheel compass, without a sense of smell, you wouldn't be able to find it at all. You would taste perhaps some saltiness that would relate to some cardinal direction. All precision is gone, you might say that what you sense is "somewhere south" on our imaginary compass.

This is how grossly ineffective our lingual papillae are at picking up tastes. After this experience, I feel that virtually everything that we think of as taste is actually being sensed in our nose, not by our tongue. I also feel that the mind is playing a sort of trick by convincing us that what we smell is coming from our palate. This may be no more than retronasal olfaction, but the sensation that this is coming from the tongue is convincing.

It has taken some time but I have largely regained my ability to smell. I am once again happily annoyed by casual odors that most people are unaware of.

Cheers!
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Victoria
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Thu Dec 28, 2017 10:53 pm

Must have been really very strange not to smell anything :shock:
This past week, visiting a friend, I realized how important a cups shape is to the olfactory experience of sipping aromatic teas. I had tried an amazingly aromatic and sweet, rich tasting Oriental Beauty at Te Company the day before, so purchased some. Next day, the only cups available were those tall American coffee mugs, totally put a damper on tasting the tea because the aromatics were 5” or 6” from my nose. I usually travel with my Seifu Yohei cup, but for this short trip thought I’d skip it. Bummer as I realized how much this cup enhances aromatics, and therefore taste.
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Baisao
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Fri Dec 29, 2017 2:23 am

It was really strange. I could breathe clearly through my nose and yet nothing at all could be smelled. My wife brought home pho for me before I knew I had lost my sense of smell. It simply tasted sweet and salty/savory. I couldn’t even taste the ton of chili paste I dumped into the bowl. I didn’t say anything to her at the time but I kept thinking it was the most bland pho I had ever had. I realized the problem after the pho. I put peanut butter on a banana and it didn’t taste right at all: sweet with flavorless paste. Peanut butter became an unpleasant texture and nothing more.

After fretting that night I decided to take this opportunity to experiment.

The next day I tried a pengfeng from central Taiwan that usually has a bit of assamica-like character to it, something typically full of flavor. There was no aroma, obviously, but the sensations from the tea were merely those of warm water with a velvety sensation on my palate. It had no taste whatsoever!

It was shocking. I asked my son to smell things for me probably dozens of times because I just couldn’t believe I couldn’t smell them. I felt normal, yet I was completely nose-blind. He calls my sense of smell my superpower, and yet it was suddenly gone.

I have experienced what you’ve mentioned with the mugs. It is a surprise to find the character so strongly attenuated by the shape of the drinking vessel. They just are not ideal for aerating the tea (we tend to gulp from habit rather than slurp as we should) or for appreciating the aromas. Vessel shape and size will impact other sensations as well.
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Bok
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Fri Dec 29, 2017 2:51 am

Baisao wrote:
Fri Dec 29, 2017 2:23 am
I have experienced what you’ve mentioned with the mugs. It is a surprise to find the character so strongly attenuated by the shape of the drinking vessel. They just are not ideal for aerating the tea (we tend to gulp from habit rather than slurp as we should) or for appreciating the aromas. Vessel shape and size will impact other sensations as well.
Another thing with mugs is the clay and glazing that is used in a lot of them, think IKEA standard mug. Seems to be something with muting properties. For coffee and milk tea just ok, for good tea a nightmare.

Same goes for all sorts of camping gear, enamel or stainless, absolutely horrible for tea!
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Victoria
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Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:12 am

Ha, the mugs were in fact modern Ikea ones. My Oriental Beauty was reduced to just okay from lack of aroma. One thing I practice to enhance aromatic and flavor experience before sipping and if I’m focused, is to blow out air from my lungs, slurp in a small portion of tea, release more air through my nose, let liquid hang out, breath in, and then slowly swallow. This method helps aroma and flavor reach upper palate and back of throat and give a full mouth feel.
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Fri Dec 29, 2017 4:20 pm

For an excellent treatment of the importance of smell in our perception of flavor see Gordon M. Shepherd Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why it Matters (New York, Columbia University Press, 2011) https://cup.columbia.edu/book/neurogast ... 0231159111
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Baisao
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Fri Dec 29, 2017 8:45 pm

Tillerman wrote:
Fri Dec 29, 2017 4:20 pm
For an excellent treatment of the importance of smell in our perception of flavor see Gordon M. Shepherd Neurogastronoyy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why it Matters (New York, Columbia University Press, 2011) https://cup.columbia.edu/book/neurogast ... 0231159111
That sounds like just the ticket, Tillerman. I found there was a dearth of information on anosmia and on how the body detects scents. It seems many scientists are content to look no further than counting lingual papillae. I was surprised by how many medical people thought it was no big deal to lose one’s sense of smell, as though it was a vestigial tail that could be docked without consequence.

I just ordered the book and look forward to reading it.

One thing that caught my attention in the description was the notion that some scientists believe we have stopped evolving in the development of this sense and that there is a perception that this sense has limited use. Apparently the author disagrees. I certainly do!

I spent the first half of my life on a subsistence farm in the bayou. The woods were so dense that I couldn’t see but maybe 10 meters in any direction. In this environment I learned to use my sense of smell to locate game, snakes, hunters, and even navigate miles of forest to get back home.

In the second half of my life I used my sense of smell to identify all sorts things: cockroaches in a restaurant, estrous, where people had been and what they have been doing, and all sorts of things that most people are not aware of.

Being nose-blind was disorienting! It was like I had lost my internal compass.

I am grateful for the experience but don’t seek to repeat it.
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Victoria
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Fri Dec 29, 2017 9:07 pm

Yes that books sounds perfect Tillerman, I’ll order it also. Growing up ocean sailing we could always smell where land was, even if we could not see it in the distance. Later my grandmother was in a car accident, and had a brain trauma loosing all sense of smell. After that she no longer enjoyed the pleasures of eating. Cooking and baking I can tell when something is ready from its smell. With tea if the wet leaves still have aroma I know another steep is good to go.
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Bok
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Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:12 pm

Victoria wrote:
Fri Dec 29, 2017 9:07 pm
With tea if the wet leves still have aroma I know another steep is good to go.
Exactly! I noticed that as well, the smell of the brewed leaves indicates how much more there is left.
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Victoria
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Tue Jan 23, 2018 5:40 pm

Into a second week of the flu, I’m at the tail end of the worst part but my sense of taste is still off with the back of my throat and sinuses still affected. Sort of demoralizing really. I guess I’ll stick to stronger medium grade teas for a few more days :(
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Baisao
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Mon Jan 29, 2018 12:19 am

Victoria wrote:
Tue Jan 23, 2018 5:40 pm
Into a second week of the flu, I’m at the tail end of the worst part but my sense of taste is still off with the back of my throat and sinuses still affected. Sort of demoralizing really. I guess I’ll stick to stronger medium grade teas for a few more days :(
This flu is the worst I’ve experienced so you have my sympathies and concerns. I hope you start to feel better soon.

Oddly enough, I lost my sense of smell after my fever broke... three days after. My sinuses were mostly clear too. From what I understand from the nurse, my body was overwhelmed by the virus and shut down that sense. It’s not very scientific but that’s what I was told.

One thing I know: I was still feeling near death (not an exaggeration) the day after I lost my sense of smell. That near-death feeling was peculiar too. I’ve never felt that way before. I remained too weak to drive for several more days so it’s not an outlandish idea that my body suffered an insult because of the viral burden. I’ve just never heard of such a thing.
Last edited by Baisao on Mon Jan 29, 2018 9:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Ragamuffin
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Mon Jan 29, 2018 9:24 am

Wow, very interesting, thank you for sharing.
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Baisao
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Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:22 pm

This seems prescient considering how many people have anosmia from SARS-CoV-2. All of the people I've known with anosmia from the virus have recovered, but only in part. Their sense of smell is either not as acute as it was or has been altered so that things smell differently.
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Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:42 pm

Baisao wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:22 pm
.... Their sense of smell is either not as acute as it was or has been altered so that things smell differently.
which is a result of brain damage. Unfortunately, the effect is usually negative: things stink that should not smell stinky while roses may have no effect at all. Your earlier suggestions for specific Japanese teas sound helpful &+1 for someone's suggestion of trying gaoshan for those cannot enjoy drinking as they had before.

Reminds me of when I got dengue: A lot of cooks in a neighborhood of Manila were close to losing their jobs. Food kept getting sent back at restaurants for a week or so before it became overwhelmingly obvious that there was a major outbreak of dengue fever in the neighborhood. Food tasting awful usually precedes the worse effects of dengue by a week. Fortunately, dengue does not have lasting effects for most people who got it.
theredbaron
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Tue Jul 06, 2021 6:25 pm

Loss of sense of smell...

Since my Covid19 infection 7 months ago i have been struggling with that badly. Initially it was totally gone, together with the sense of taste, which however got back soon. But my sense of smell can be described still only as rudimentary, with slow improvements. Some days a bit better, others worse. Some things that should smell pleasant, do not. Some things i can smell easily, others, especially complex odors, with huge difficulties, or not at all.

In terms of drinking tea, it's rather devastating. Seriously devastating. Something that has accompanied me for the last 30 years of my life i am struggling to still enjoy.

My favourite - good Yancha, i have not been able to taste at all. Only a few days ago i managed for the first time to get some good taste out of a mid range Yancha.
Aged Sheng, soso, i won't waste my good ones.
Japanese tea seems to be somewhat OK.
The teas i seem to be able to taste better are Liu Bao and Red Teas. At least something.

I am not giving up, but had to adapt my tea drinking habits. I do hope that one day my proper sense of smell will come back, and that i can enoy tea the way i did before.
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