Coffee's aroma and taste involve over a thousand compounds with varied sensory pathways.

Moderate caffeinated coffee intake is linked to an 18% lower risk of dementia.

Only caffeinated, not decaf, coffee or tea is associated with decreased dementia risk.

It’s not uncommon to encounter someone who likes the aroma of coffee but has never adapted themselves to the habit of drinking it. “I love the smell of fresh-ground coffee, especially in the morning, but I don’t like the taste,” is a typical self-description.

This distinction between smell and taste depends on an array of anatomical, biological, and chemical factors. While taste and smell are clearly intertwined—the sudden loss of taste for gourmet dinners is often the first symptom of COVID-19—there are major differences.

First—sticking to coffee—both the flavor and smell are the result of a complex cocktail of more than a thousand compounds. The balance of flavors is modified by varying factors: what beans are selected and how long they are roasted, as well as variations in the brewing methods, such as temperature and pressure. Any one of these contributors can affect how many of the harder-to-extract flavors emanate from that morning cuppa. Of the different flavors, some are more easily vaporized than others, allowing them to diffuse through the air and enter your nose, where you initially smell them. Other flavor compounds are larger and need higher temperatures to vaporize—you smell them less, or not at all.

In addition, we smell coffee via two different pathways. The orthonasal path located in the nose detects external aromas within the environment. The more volatile aromatics are detectable in the air emanating........

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