The basics of coffee tasting: ten steps to improve your sense of smell

There may be many reasons why you want to improve your sense of smell. First of all, the sense of smell is closely related to your sense of taste. Try to hold your nose and taste the food! Smell is also a necessary skill to describe the aroma of wine, coffee, beer, or even tea. In general, being able to smell flowers, or someone's body scent, or the nuances of fallen leaves in autumn, can make you have more fun in it. And, you know what? The nose of an ordinary person can distinguish almost 1000 different smells.

Methods / steps

1. Pay more attention to what you've already smelled. People often say that muscles "run away without it", but in fact, it feels the same way. Use your senses more, and they will get better! Learn how to describe smells. You may even want to write an olfactory diary! Another exercise is to blindfold yourself and let others put different things in front of your nose to see if you can recognize the smells.

two。 Write down how a particular smell makes you feel. The olfactory nerve is directly connected to the emotional part of your brain, not the rational part. For example, the study found that the smell of fast food wrapping paper, fresh bread or crispy dough makes road violence more likely; the smell of mint and cinnamon can increase attention and reduce the irritable mood of drivers; the smell of lemon and coffee generally promotes clarity of thinking and a high degree of concentration.

3. Avoid foods that cause too much slime. Have you ever noticed that when you catch a cold, your sense of smell weakens or even disappears completely? If the nose membrane containing olfactory nerve endings is blocked, your sense of smell will become dull, so avoiding foods that can cause clogging of the nose (milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream) can help improve your sense of smell.

The reason why a stuffy nose can also affect your taste is that there is a channel between the back of your throat and the sensory cells in your nose. If the passage is blocked by some obstacles, your ability to taste food will also be affected.

4. Stay away from things that weaken your sense of smell. There are some cold medicines that can make you lose your sense of smell, such as those that FDA warns against, and some drugs made by Zicam that are used intranasally. Smoking can also affect your sense of smell. Keep your alcohol level to a minimum, because your sense of smell weakens as your blood alcohol concentration increases.

5. Increase zinc intake in your diet. Anosmia (the medical term for anosmia) is usually associated with a lack of mineral zinc. To improve your sense of smell, try eating more zinc-rich foods such as oysters, lentils, sunflower seeds and walnuts, or consider taking vitamins containing at least 7 milligrams of zinc a day.

6. Exercise more. Research shows that our sense of smell is sharper after exercise, so we have another reason to keep fit!

7. Use a humidifier. Increasing the moisture in the air will also increase the moisture in your nose, which can improve your sense of smell.

8. Stay away from the stench. The smell for a long time will numb your sense of smell.

9. When you try to identify a smell, smell it gently and briefly, not for a long time. You'll find that's what cats and dogs do when they first smell something. This will improve your ability to find a smell.

10. When you go to the supermarket to buy food, write down the foods that smell best, most of which are what your body craves. When buying food, start choosing what you think smells best. For example, when choosing rye bread, when deciding whether to choose cheese or not, it is best to smell the bread and cheese, and then decide which combination has the best flavor. Of course, which one you think smells best reflects which one your body needs the most. You can even smell pills or vitamin bottles to see which aroma you think is the best, so it's the kind of medicine or vitamin your body needs most. (however, consult your doctor before taking any pills and a new batch of vitamins.) When shopping for the family, if family members do the same exercise and eat similar food, they tend to want to eat the same food (for example, weightlifting families and aerobics families have different dietary tendencies.)

Warning

The sudden disappearance of the sense of smell is usually due to upper respiratory tract infections, such as sinusitis and the common cold. Less common causes may be diseases such as cranial nerve injury (olfactory nerve), nasal polyps caused by cystic fibrosis, hypothyroidism, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Kalman syndrome. If you have an inexplicable loss of smell, please seek medical advice