Two anecdotes to contribute here: First, due to allergic rhinitis, my sense of smell was pretty muted for much of my life, only in the last few years when I developed a taste for wines did I start making a serious effort to manage that better and develop my sens of smell. It's been quite a pleasure to do.

Secondly, a friend of mine keeps (kept?) drawers full of jars with different things in them that had specific smells associated with them. In the same way someone might keep a photo album, she kept a collection of smells which would vividly recall a memory for her. To this day I still find that absolutely fascinating that she was able to do that so reliably.

The contrast of her experiences with smell vs mine was quite astounding to me and something I've thought about a lot since meeting her a few years ago.