Our sense of smell is unique, and key in enjoying chocolate. And did you know that chocolate is one of the most complex foods known to humans?! It’s true. With at least hundreds of flavor compounds, every time you take a bite out of your favorite chocolate bar, you might experience something different. It’s one of the things that makes a chocolate tasting so intriguing. In tasting a chocolate bar with just two ingredients, cacao and sugar, you might notice a multitude of flavor notes featured on our tasting wheel. Perhaps something like a berry, maybe you notice a slightly earthy note, or nutty.

Here’s another possibilitiy – you take a bite of a chocolate bar and are immediately brought back to your childhood. That time in early summer when you bit into that first juicy strawberry; the holiday season and you’re instantly a child on Christmas Eve admiring the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. This is the magic of your sense of smell. Our sense of smell is directly linked our memories. In other words, when you’re nostalgic and can picture yourself at home on Christmas Eve, perhaps the chocolate bar has notes of pine in it, or maybe it has notes of butter and reminds you of a Christmas cookie. If you could feel the berry juice running down your chin, maybe there were notes of strawberry in the chocolate bar.

Our mouths, or our tongues, can only distinguish five basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. It is our nose that detects the myriad of aroma “volatiles” or compounds that make consuming food like chocolate or a beverage like drinking chocolate so enjoyable.

Among the many lessons we learned from Covid, one was how integral our sense of smell is to eating. Anyone who has had a cold and lost their sense of smell temporarily knows that eating is not as much fun when we can’t smell. Chocolate can have strong flavors (it’s why my grandmother only ate dark chocolate as she got older – she could still taste it)! and yet the complexities are only there with our sense of smell.

Our sense of smell “filters through all aspects of our existence,” explains neuroscientist Rachel Herz of Brown University. (It makes me even prouder to be from Rhode Island). We should think of our sense of smell like exercise – the more we use it, the better we are at using our nose. Moreover, “the more we deliberately use our sense of smell…the better our brain health is, and even the general health of our bodies.” When we smell a piece of chocolate, taking in all of the aromas slowly and mindfully not only increases our serotonin, it also helps improve spatial memory and spatial orientation. Noticing what our chocolate smells like, taking small deep breaths in actually improves our cognitive performance, our health – and it enhances the flavor of our chocolate.

We talk about using all of our senses when we eat chocolate, and so many people brush by smelling that bite of chocolate. But our sense of smell can do so much for us – including make us enjoy the chocolate that much more.

We know – we didn’t think it was possible, but trust us – it is! 

Interested in learning more or trying for yourself? Email us at events@laughinggullchocolates.com.