What is aroma?

Aroma is what makes things smell good, or not so good, and it helps us know what something is just by sniffing it.

Imagine you have a cookie jar in your kitchen. When you open the lid, you can tell it’s cookies without even looking, that’s aroma at work! Aroma is like a message that travels through the air from something to your nose.

When you smell something, tiny invisible pieces called molecules float from that thing into the air. These molecules travel until they reach your nose. When they get there, they send a signal to your brain, and poof, you know what it is!

It’s like when you put your face close to a flower and can tell it's a rose or a daisy just by its smell.

You use aroma all the time! When you smell coffee in the morning, that's aroma. When you smell your lunch from across the room, that’s also aroma. Even when something smells bad, like wet socks, that’s still aroma working hard to tell you it's time for a change of shoes! Aroma is what makes things smell good, or not so good, and it helps us know what something is just by sniffing it.

Imagine you have a cookie jar in your kitchen. When you open the lid, you can tell it’s cookies without even looking, that’s aroma at work! Aroma is like a message that travels through the air from something to your nose.