Why does warm food smell stronger?

Picture a warm bowl of soup on the table. Take a slow, deep sniff. Mmm, can you smell it from your chair? Your tummy gives a happy little rumble.

Now think of the same soup, cold from the fridge. You have to lean in close to smell it. Even then, the smell is faint and quiet. So why does warm food smell stronger?

Every food holds tiny smell bits, too small to see. When those bits float into your nose, you smell the food. Your eyes cannot see them, but your nose can find them. We call that smell an aroma, which means the smell that rises from food.

In cold soup, the tiny smell bits barely move. They stay snug inside the soup, like sleepy kittens. Hardly any of them leave the bowl. So only a little aroma reaches your nose.

Now a grown-up warms the soup on the stove. Little by little, the soup gets hotter. The heat spreads through the soup, all the way to the tiny bits. What do you think the warmth does to them?

The warmth wakes the tiny bits up. They jiggle and bounce, faster and faster. Jiggle, jiggle, bounce! Soon lots of them jump right out of the soup.

Then the free bits waft up into the air. Waft means floating gently along, like a feather. They waft up from the bowl and across the kitchen.

Many tiny bits drift into your nose at once. More bits in your nose make a stronger aroma. That is how you smell warm soup from your chair.

Warmth makes tiny smell bits jump out of food and waft to your nose. More bits bring a stronger aroma.

The warm soup waits in its bowl on the table. Its cozy aroma wafts all the way to your chair.