Smells

[Linford]

A guy I work with has bought a coffee grinder into the office, and duly used it to make an expresso this morning in a rather nifty expresso gadget

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Handpress...pt=Coffee_Machines_Makers&hash=item3f1b692996

Anyway, the smell of freshly ground coffee took me back to my youth when there was a whittards shop in the high st of my town, which had a coffee roaster which vented out onto the pavement.

You could smell this thing when it was running from about 100 yards away, and similar when the Whitbread-Flowers brewery was running behind the shop, would vent strong smells of the hops being boiled up.

I doubt that the HSE would allow anythign like this to happen any more, but it occured to me that we in the UK live in such a smell free and sterile environment with filters for this, and traps for that.

I'm amazed that the likes of Pizza Hut and Subway are able to get away with doing this still. The greatest shame is that they don't taste as nice as they smell

Any recollections of industrial smells you miss (residents of Neath need not comment )

 

[fossyant]

Don't know about that - the Robinson's brewery in Stockport can be smelt quite easily.

 

[martint235]

The smell of cotton from the weavers sheds in summer. The sheds were huge greenhouses effectively, god knows how may square metres covered by a glass roof. In the summer they would throw open the big doors they used for delivering/despatching the cotton and you could smell it for miles. You could also hear the looms, they were deafening.

 

[Night Train]

I doubt that the HSE would allow anything like this to happen any more, but it occured to me that we in the UK live in such a smell free and sterile environment with filters for this, and traps for that.

I don't know what smells are allowed and which are not but I don't think we are smell free. The smells are different and maybe not so much to your preference.
Personally I have a very sensitive nose and I strongly dislike strong odours but there does seem to be, for me, fewer nice scents and more less nice ones.

I used to live near the McVities factory in Levenshume and could smell the hot sugar. Now I live near the Trafford Park and I can smell that odd malty smell that was also very strong near the north end of the Blackwall Tunnel in east London.
Neither of these I mind much but perfumes, on men and women, reek and make me nauseous.

I dislike the smell of petrol but but don't mind diesel. Steam locomotives smell lovely when they are hot.

One I really detest is the tobacco and cannabis odours that permeate through from the house next door. I must sort out sealing every possible gap in the party wall to keep it out.
Another is beer and urine in town and city centres.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Someone, Costa, I think, seem to be roasting coffee just south of the railway viaducts at Waterloo. Whoever it is, the smell hangs over quite a large area. I much prefer the aroma of freshly made coffee - there's something cloying about the smell of roasting.

 

[RaRa]

Unfortunately I lost a lot of my sense of smell when I was 17 and had an operation that got bungled. Sadly the one smell that still got through came from the local tannery which I had to walk past during my Uni days - it honked and worst of all the smell seemed to linger on your clothes like stale smoke.

 

[ohnovino]

My commute goes past a small sweet factory that pumps out the scent of fruity boiled sweets. My regular short training ride goes past a Cocoa factory that pumps out the smell of chocolate.

It's no wonder I feel the need to stuff my face when I get home from a ride!

 

[Linford]

The Weetabix factory on the A14 in a pleasure to drive past when the winds right

I go past the factory which makes the boxes for these every day on the way to work

 

[Black Sheep]

Steam locomotives smell lovely when they are hot.

oh, yes.

generally old workshops, especially steam powered ones, are lovely smells and I could happily sit there all day enjoying it as it reminds me of my grandad and his workshop.

 

[Silver Fox]

When I was about 6 my mum used to work in an office job at Liverpool airport, during the school holidays she'd take me in with her. I'd spend many a happy hour watching the planes taking off and landing.

These days the sounds and smells of an airport take me back to those innocent times.

 

[martint235]

Following on from airports, train stations. I've always found there's a smell peculiar to Preston and to London Euston. I don't know what it is about these two stations, it may that I used them so frequently as a child. You can't go anywhere from East Lancs without going through Preston and we used to come to London with my dad as he often worked here.

 

[User169]

[QUOTE 2023431, member: 259"]I quite miss the smell of coal. Apart from the coal fires that everyone had on, even in the summer there was a strong pervasive whiff of raw coal that came from the pits as you passed them, usually mixed with the smell of tar from the piles of sleepers they often had in the yards.[/quote]

What's happened to Uncle Mort?? !!!

 

[Linford]

Every branch of Lush can be sniffed out 100m away.

Lush =

 

[tadpole]

Back in the day, in Bristol two main smells dominated, Courages Brewery, and the Docks I never knew which was worse, the Stench from the mud exposed at low tide on the Cut, or the Brewery. In summer it was twice as bad. I'd rather smell hot road tar.
Thankfully Courages is not there now, posh flats have taken over.

 

[LegsRsore]

I grew up near two contrasting smells when I was a kid.

On one hand there was the delightful smell of the crispy (I think it was golden wonder). Monday; prawn cocktail, Tuesday; salt and vinegar, etc. mmm

However, only 1 mile away was the granox. This factory made glue by boiling up horse parts. Blar.

You can still smell the granox from time to time