Scent families

Twelve groups for sorting everything that can be smelled, each anchored to reference points you can actually smell — including a Fermented family and a Smoky & Mineral family.

CitrusThe smell of fruit peel squeezed open. It evaporates faster than any other family, so it is always the first to arrive…
GreenThe smell of fresh leaves that have just been damaged. A plant does not give this off when it is left alone; it…
FloralFloral smells range from clear and innocent to so heady they become unpleasant. The line between the two is often only…
Woody & ResinousThe smell of the parts of a tree that are no longer alive: sawn wood, oozing resin, drying roots. The molecules are…
SpicyDried or fresh spices. The warmth here is not purely a smell — it is a response of the trigeminal nerve, the same…
GourmandSmells that arise only with heat and a human hand: cooked rice, caramelised sugar, toasted coconut. Not all of them…
EarthyThe smell of soil, mushrooms, moss, dark cellars — places short of light and full of moisture. The human nose is more…
MedicinalCamphor, eucalyptus, mint, traditional herbal medicine. Sharp and edged, leaving a cold feeling in the nose after the…
FermentedFish sauce, fermented soybean paste, fermented tofu, overripe fruit. The most divisive family, and also the richest in…
Smoky & MineralStraw smoke, charcoal, hot cement, rusty iron. The only family with neither a plant nor an animal origin, and also the…
AnimalicSmells from living bodies — skin, hair, breath, animal fur. This is the group with the fewest words to describe it…
Household objectsThe smells of things people make: paper, ink, plastic, paint, rubber, soap. They do not occur in nature but are…