The Scent of Coffee

I love the scent of coffee. Walking into a room steeped in the deep caramelly decadence simply makes me happy. I love drinking it as well but that’s for a whole other post.

The Scent of Coffee

Breathing in the coffee aroma can instantaneously take me back to when my children were little—three and six and I had one of those programmable coffee makers. It not only brewed it but ground the beans, too.

I remember those hectic mornings—rushing about seeing my son off to school and my daughter off for pre-school then heading off to work. With a sigh, I miss those little people who have now grown into adults.

All this from the scent of coffee?

Yes, that and more. Breathe in that coffee-scented steam and I’m back at that all night diner—books and notebook spread out over the table in the guise of studying while basically chatting most of the night with my coffee loving friend.

There’s also catching the scent of a certain cologne and suddenly, remembering a person I hadn’t thought of in a long time. The memories pour in and I can almost picture myself there in a particular moment.

Scents, like music, can take me back to a moment in time in such a rich and vibrant way.

As a writer (and a reader), I rely on the sense of smell to enrich a scene and help make the storytelling all that much deeper.

Before dawn the next day, Bella stepped out into the foggy morning air and inhaled deeply. Wrinkling her nose, she looked about but was unable to see far ahead in the dense fog. Something didn’t smell right. It smelled off. A little acrid sweet and a little iron tang carried on the heavy air. Something smelled a little dead.

Her heart skipped a beat.

When had that happened? Before the aroma of the vineyard was filled with earth, greenery, and new buds to maturing berries. There often carried the perfume of sweet apples from the orchard—those new and on the trees and those that had fallen and nourished the soil. The vineyard smelled of life in all its stages.
 
Never death.

Never death despite the spirits that co-habited the land with them.*

*Excerpt from my forthcoming work-in-progress, WATCH OVER ME.

It pulls us in and helps us experience the moment.

Until next time, which of the senses spark your memories the strongest?

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About the Author

Minnesota-based author, Joie Lesin is a life-long fiction writer and the author of The Passenger. She has long been fascinated by anything otherworldly including ghosts. She loves to write a good ghost story—especially when it includes a touch of romance.