We’ve all heard about the mysterious powers of smell and its importance in love, friendship and food.

Olfaction is an ancient sense, the key by which our earliest forebears learned to approach or slink off. Yet the right aroma can evoke such vivid, whole body sensations that we feel life’s permanent newness, the grounding of now.

Moreover, numerous studies have shown that smell memory is long and resilient, and that the earliest odor associations we make often stick.

Here is a fun and easy experiment that Rachel Herz of Brown University suggests you try at home, but only if you promise to eat your vegetables first, floss afterward, and are not at risk of a diabetic coma. Buy a bag of assorted jelly beans of sufficiently high quality

Then, sample all the flavors in the bag systematically until you are sure you appreciate just how distinctive each one is, because expertise is important and you may never get another excuse this good.