Drinking Tea with No Sense of Smell

I’ll tell you about my experience with anosmia (loss of sense of smell) that happened due to COVID-19 infection.

If you’ve been wondering why I hadn’t reviewed any teas in a long time, this is the reason.

It all started at the end of March of this year.

Positive for coronavirus

The first person in my close family to get infected was my wife.

She had some symptoms, although they weren’t severe.

At first only she tested positive, but I knew that it was soon going to be my turn.

Sure enough, my daughter and I tested positive about 5 days later even though we didn’t have any symptoms.

I thought that I had luckily recovered from the disease without any issues, but I was wrong.

Some days later I noticed that my sense of smell was diminishing.

Facing the inevitable

My wife and I discovered that we could barely feel the strong smell of vinegar.

I was still optimistic, though. I imagined that I would soon be back to normal.

But after some time I totally lost my sense of smell.

Once you lose it, you realize just how important it is.

Tea was the least of my worries, I could barely enjoy food.

I may have even lost weight as a result of a diminished appetite.

It was a little depressing.

A month later, I was still unable to smell anything.

I hadn’t drank tea yet, because I felt that I would waste it in my current state.

Drinking tea again

At least my sense of taste was intact, so I started to drink tea again.

I only drank teas that I knew what the aroma was like, because I didn’t want to try something new without being able to evaluate its aroma.

I tried to enjoy the taste as best as I could.

Obviously, it was impossible to continue the tea reviews for this blog.

Then I heard about olfactory training and started to do that.

But to be honest I don’t think that it helped.

It would take 6 months before I could smell something.

I finally recovered

While I can smell again, I’m not completely sure if I’m at 100% or somewhere below.

I worry that I may not be reviewing a tea as good as I could do it before.

Anyway, I’m thankful because some people have waited for longer, or are still waiting.

While I’m vaccinated, I don’t know if I can lose my sense of smell again in the future.

Now I enjoy the aroma of my favorite teas as if it it were the last time that I could smell them.