Old books actually smell like chocolate and coffee

Admit it, you love to sniff books! And in some cases, the older the book, the better the smell.

With the help of a recent study, Popular Science breaks down why:

What does a book smell like? Freshly printed books might smell of paper and ink, but older books have a sweet, musky smell that wafts into a book-lovers nose and lingers.

And apparently, it reminds a lot of people of chocolate.

In a study published Thursday in Heritage Science, researchers at the University College London’s Institute for Sustainable Heritage examined the smell of books and libraries, putting together a classification scheme that could help characterize the scents of the past—and maybe even diagnose deteriorating books before damage gets out of control.

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