superbarista

blog from the ceo & superbarista of phoenix coffee, home of the best baristas in cleveland, ohio

Monday, September 19, 2005

Can you see with your nose?

Have you ever noticed that our sense of smell is place-specific? We become accustomed to the way a particular place smells and we don't notice it anymore. I notice this the most at our Roastery. Roastery visitors almost always remark on the overwhelming coffee smell. I have to admit that I don't even smell it anymore, despite the hundreds of pounds of coffee that are processed in our Roastery every day. But if I put one five pound bag of the same freshly roasted beans in my car, I enjoy the aroma all the way home. Isn't that odd? Why do our noses filter out the familiar? Does my nose adjust its filters as soon as I walk through any doorway through which I have previously walked? Does my nose know that I have already walked through those doors? Does that mean that my nose can actually see?

1 Comments:

Blogger Jim Eastman said...

I don't necessarily think it's a nose-centric phenomenon. Across all five senses we filter out the familiar. Have any background noises that you also ignore? How about the familiar drive home? Notice that anymore? We're accustomed to noticing the different and to enhance that, we have a tendency to filter out the familiar.

6:54 PM, September 19, 2005  

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