Meet the ‘Supertaster' Helping COVID Survivors Get Their Smell Sense Back

In a quiet, dimly lit room, Michele Crippa hands Christine Rizzoli a vial of mushrooms, then guides her through a sort of meditation, telling her to imagine she’s in the forest, hiking beneath trees, feeling the wind on her arms, smelling the grass and the moss. 

It’s not the beginning of a psychedelic journey—Crippa is trying to help Rizzoli regain her sense of smell.

Rizzoli, an apple farmer in northern Italy, is one of the many COVID-19 survivors whose senses of smell and taste were radically altered by the virus. After nine months suffering with the loss, she turned to Crippa, a friend who’s a sommelier, food critic, professor of gastronomy, and former renowned “supertaster.” He, too, lost his sense of taste and smell due to COVID earlier this year, and then spent the next few months retraining himself using sensory analysis techniques he learned in culinary school.

“Smell is a part of your personality, a part of your own essence,” Crippa says. But for Rizzoli, it’s also essential for her business—and not just for tasting fruit. “It's very important to have all the surroundings, um, smells, in a field to see what pesticides have been used, and so on,” she said. “And now I do not recognize any smell or fragrance that is within my field.”

That’s where the mushrooms come in. They’re part of a sensory kit developed by Crippa and partners made up of 20 vials containing scents of the most popular essences, like mint, lavender, and lemon. The repeated and focused exposure to different smells is one of the methods to help retrain COVID-19 survivors’ senses. 

Listen to our conversation with Crippa on the latest episode of VICE News Reports wherever you get your podcasts: Google Podcasts, Spotify, Apple

MORE: 

What Smells Can Teach Us About History

The Bizarre Long COVID Symptom That Makes Your Favourite Food Smell Like Trash

I Lost My Sense of Smell, and My Whole Life Has Changed

 CREDITS: 

This story was produced by Steph Brown.

VICE News Reports is hosted by Arielle Duhaime-Ross and produced by Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, Sophie Kazis, Jen Kinney, Janice Llamoca, Julia Nutter, and Sayre Quevedo. Our senior producers are Ashley Cleek and Adizah Eghan. Our associate producers are Steph Brown, Sam Eagan, and Adreanna Rodriguez. Sound design and music composition by Steve Bone, Natasha Jacobs, and Kyle Murdock. 

Our executive producer and VP of Vice Audio is Kate Osborn. Janet Lee is Senior Production Manager for VICE Audio.

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[VICE NEWS REPORTS THEME]

[ARCHIVAL RECORDING] I really love my nose because it led me to be attracted to my husband, led me to my scientific curiosity, led me to my career and makes my life delicious and joyful. 

[ARCHIVAL RECORDING] Our senses of taste and smell were born of our most primitive instincts for survival.

[ARCHIVAL RECORDING] People just don't realize how important it is in your whole life to be able to smell things.  

[ARCHIVAL RECORDING] Good food is like music you can taste, color you can smell. There is excellence all around you. You need only be aware to stop and savor it.

ARIELLE DUHAIME-ROSS: This is VICE News Reports and I’m your host, Arielle Duhaime-Ross. 

[THEME OUT]

DUHAIME-ROSS: Right now in the States, it's a big week for food. And when I say food, what I really mean is taste, which is really all about smell. Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, a lot of people are dealing with a radically altered sense of smell. And in Italy there’s a guy who’s devoted himself to helping people get it back.

DUHAIME-ROSS: Hey, um - it’s Michele, right, is that how you pronounce your name? 

MICHELE CRIPPA: Um, yes. 

DUHAIME-ROSS: Fantastic, um, my name’s Arielle. 

MICHELE CRIPPA: Great.

DUHAIME-ROSS: So, Michele, I've been really interested in the idea of talking to you because one of the things that makes me really nervous when it comes to the idea of getting COVID is losing my -- my sense of smell. Like, I’m really scared of that. 

MICHELE CRIPPA: Yeah. This is exactly -- probably one of the most personal damage to your sensitivities. I mean, it’s something that really compromises your ability to perceive the realities surrounding you. So it’s something very personally affective.  

DUHAIME-ROSS: Yeah. So deeply attached to so many different aspects of our lives in ways that we don't even really understand or -- or fully acknowledge.

MICHELE CRIPPA: Yes, you know the sense of smell is probably one of the most interesting senses that’s naturally drawn to us to recognize not just the smell of food or the wine, but it's something that's really deeply connected to your own emotion and personality. It’s -- something that looks like and sounds like and smells like you lost that part of your life, a part of your personality, a part of your own essence. 

DUHAIME-ROSS: Yeah, yeah. I think you really -- you articulated it really well, because that's exactly what -- what the fear is for me. It's -- it's losing a part of yourself that is so integral to -- to your personality and how you interact with the world. Yeah. So, Michele, could you introduce yourself?

MICHELE CRIPPA: Yes, sure. My name is Michele. I'm Michele Crippa, I am 32 years old. I'm a teacher, a food science teacher, or as I prefer to call, gastronomic science teacher. I used to be also a food critic before the pandemic. ‘Cause after COVID, I lost my sense of smell, and so I am not more able to judge and make reviews of restaurants. 

DUHAIME-ROSS: I definitely want to ask you more about that because I can imagine that that would be really hard, but I think I need some context about your life story first. So could you tell me, how did food become such a big part of your life and work? 

[MUSIC]

MICHELE CRIPPA: Food, it’s a focal point of my life. Since when I was a kid, I grew up in a beautiful family surrounded by incredible food experiences. We are Italian. And Momma and Grandmother's kitchens are always the central part of our house and home, so we grow up in kitchens with our family. So I trained myself. I trained my sense of smell and taste to become a supertaster. I used to be a kind of food critic for several different Italian gastronomic guides. We used to travel all around Italy. So my goal was to visit the different restaurants, cafeterias, bar, pizzerias to understand what's going on in our restaurants all over Italy. 

DUHAIME-ROSS: It’s a very hard life, very, very, hard life. 

MICHELE CRIPPA: Very hard life, I know.

[MUSIC OUT]

DUHAIME-ROSS: So, obviously COVID -- COVID-19 had -- has and continues to have an immense amount of -- of impacts for people all over the world, right? People have lost their lives. People have lost their jobs, it has huge economic impacts. And your field, especially,  right, restaurants, the food industry has been really, really affected. Restaurant workers all over the world have been deeply, deeply affected, got sick at very high rates. One of the first countries to be really, really affected by all of this was -- was your country, was Italy. And you know, Italy is known for its food. So I'm wondering, how was this culture of food affected by the beginning of the COVID outbreak? 

MICHELE CRIPPA: Ah, the unlucky side effects of COVID for Italian, Italian population, you know --

[MUSIC]

MICHELE CRIPPA: I still remember that period almost 18-19 months ago. It all started on February and March 2020. In my personal case, my life was completely changed on March the 17th. I woke up, I was preparing the breakfast. I still remember the precise hour. It was 20 minutes to 10:00 when I poured that cup of espresso and I smelled nothing. I just tasted hot water and nothing else. So just the perception of the temperature, not flavors, not aroma, not toasted perfumes. It's like when you turn off the light in the room. Everything was shaded. Everything was completely distant.

DUHAIME-ROSS: Hm.

MICHELE CRIPPA: My sense of smell, my sense of taste were completely lost. And every day I woke up, I still remember I used to go to rest on my bed, to stay -- to go sleep at night and the morning after I used to carry aside of my bed a full glass of very pungent spices like cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg. And in the morning, I used to put my nose in that glass and try to breathe and try to smell at least, or try to perceive a little bit of that kind of perfumes. But every morning was not possible. 

DUHAIME-ROSS: I mean, if that's the first thing that you're doing every morning, is it becoming an obsession for you at this point?

MICHELE CRIPPA: Uh, it became an obsession because when I started to realize that that inability to perceive perfumes and taste was lasting over time. So it was affecting my total personal life more than my profession. 

DUHAIME-ROSS: Right.

MICHELE CRIPPA: So it's all connected to your daily routine. Like, you want to kiss a person and you're not able to taste that person or you are not able to -- to smell his or her neck to recognize the person you love. 

DUHAIME-ROSS: Hm.

MICHELE CRIPPA: So this is the daily -- the daily perception for the entire day, and I think that that period was probably the most difficult for me and for all the people suffering of this particular smell disorder. 

[MUSIC OUT]

DUHAIME-ROSS: We’ll be right back. After the break.

***BREAK***

[VICE NEWS REPORTS THEME]

DUHAIME-ROSS: As you're realizing that you've lost your sense of smell and your sense of taste in the -- in the beginning, what was your approach to that, right? Who do you call first and what happens next?

MICHELE CRIPPA: I was very lucky because at that time I was collaborating with very important and international schools of Italian cuisine here in Italy and a few of my colleagues, Novella Bagna and Gian Paolo Braceschi, they are a doctor and a scientist and also professor of sensory analysis. I call for help and ask them what I have to do, my sense of smell it’s still -- it’s still lost, I don't know what to do. And together with them, we work together to find out um, a training. 

[MUSIC]

MICHELE CRIPPA: So the focal idea is this one: we are helping people with olfactory training class, activating the perception of their sense of smell using the sensory box, a kit containing 20 bottles of the most popular essences and perfumes for the Italian population. 

DUHAIME-ROSS: Hm.

MICHELE CRIPPA: So we understood that hypnotically, we can reinvocate images and experiences connected to that specific perfumes. 

DUHAIME-ROSS: Okay.

MICHELE CRIPPA: And the 20 different perfumes we selected and collected in the sensory box are the 20 olfactory standards and perfumes of our daily life and society, such as lemon coffee, mint, mushrooms, truffle, lavender, violet, banana, apple. Every single one of these particular perfumes, it is connected to very specific, unique events, images, experiences, emotions of our daily lives in society. For example, coffee. Okay? Coffee. From my personal perception, coffee, it's related to the kitchen in the morning. So it evocates in my mind, my breakfast, it evocates in my mind, for example, meeting up with my colleagues at work in a studio drinking all together a cup of espresso. 

[MUSIC OUT]

DUHAIME-ROSS: Okay, so how do you use these images? Like, how do you go from thinking about memories of drinking coffee to helping me actually smell coffee? 

MICHELE CRIPPA: Correct. First of all, we developed these olfactory training classes in very specific and unique sensory labs. So a completely quiet space where all people, they are safe and sound. we practice stimulating the olfactory bulb.

[MUSIC]

[FIELD RECORDING] MICHELE CRIPPA: And together with Christine Rizzoli today, we are going to introduce and present a sensory class. Okay, Christine. So today we are going to use the sensory box for our smell training class. We are in the sensory labs. The lights are completely set. So please concentrate yourself. Take your time and then close your eyes. I'm picking up the bottles of the smell from the sensory box. Please open the bottle and smell maximum three seconds, no more.

MICHELE CRIPPA: No more. No more than three seconds, otherwise the sense of smell felt an adaptation. It's like when you enter in a very large perfume shops, you know?

DUHAIME-ROSS: Mhmm.

MICHELE CRIPPA: You know, entering these kind of shops and you are totally bombed by the perfumes --

DUHAIME-ROSS: Overwhelmed, right. 

MICHELE CRIPPA: Overwhelmed, exactly. No more than three seconds, the stimulation. And then we ask the taster if he's able to feel or not. And if he's able to recognize that particular perfume.

DUHAIME-ROSS: Okay. 

[FIELD RECORDING] MICHELE CRIPPA: Pass the bottle under your nose and then close the little bottle. Yeah. Okay, Christine, are you able to feel something? 

[FIELD RECORDING] CHRISTINE RIZZOLI: Um, I do smell something. Um, it is even familiar, but I'm not able to recognize whether this -- uh, no, I cannot name the flavor, the specific flavor.

MICHELE CRIPPA: Then in the following steps, we help the people to reconnect to very specific memories and images connected to that particular perfume. Never evoking, never telling the name of the product. 

[FIELD RECORDING] MICHELE CRIPPA: Okay. So now take the bottle again, open it. And while you smell it, listen to these words. Mountains, hikings, woods, pine cones, soil, bark, streams, moss, leaves, and undergrowth. Serenity, tranquility, adventure, relaxation, surprise and joy. But also feeling of heaviness. The smell of a dog. Stagnate in water accompanied by sadness and loneliness. This is a perfume that is really deep-rooted on your territory. Are you able now to recognize it a little bit? 

[FIELD RECORDING] CHRISTINE RIZZOLI: Um, yes. A little bit in the sense of, um, as you were invoking the woods and hiking, yes. That's -- that's how it is familiar. Um, it might be something -- um -- moss --

[FIELD RECORDING] MICHELE CRIPPA: Correct. What do you find under moss in the forest?

[FIELD RECORDING] CHRISTINE RIZZOLI: Mushrooms.

[FIELD RECORDING] MICHELE CRIPPA: Yeah, you're right. This is mushroom. Correct.

[MUSIC OUT]

DUHAIME-ROSS: Who has been coming to you to -- to ask for advice or for training, who's been coming to you for help? 

MICHELE CRIPPA: Hundreds and hundreds of people started texting me on my social, by email and contacting me. First of all, they were very worried about their situation because like me, they didn't understand what was going on. And discouraged by the fact that nobody’s helped them. And you know, the recovery process is a very -- is very long, and people -- they were in a very particular state of anxiety and depression most of the time. One of the messages and the person that really, really touched me and touched my soul was this mother. She gave birth six months ago and she never smelled the perfume of her baby. 

DUHAIME-ROSS: Oof.

MICHELE CRIPPA: So it's something that really, it’s so connected, as we say before, to every single part of our daily life. And probably this effect is one that really drives me to take care of all those people and help them, at least to help them on a psychological level.

DUHAIME-ROSS: Hm.

MICHELE CRIPPA: So, it's so fundamental. The process, as I said before, it's very long. Every single day it’s becoming better and better and better.

[MUSIC]

MICHELE CRIPPA: For example, this morning I was very, very fantastically happy. Today this morning for the first time, I started to perceive the buttery aromas of cheese. I break the piece -- little piece of cheese, it was amazing and it was almost one year and a half that I was not able to perceive that kind of perfume. So --

DUHAIME-ROSS: Wow.

MICHELE CRIPPA: -- every day is becoming better and better.

DUHAIME-ROSS: Congrats! So, I mean I am glad that it seems to have worked for you. I am curious though, for -- for some people, not everybody, some people seem to really have had long-lasting effects of this. And they don't know when their sense of taste and smell is coming back, but for some people it comes back gradually. So how do you know that this retraining is the thing that is helping you get your sense of taste and smell back, instead of just it coming back naturally because it's been awhile since -- since you got COVID?

MICHELE CRIPPA: We are studying it. We created also an international team to better understand how our brain functions. 

DUHAIME-ROSS: Mhmm. 

MICHELE CRIPPA: So we are not still have the correct amount of data to better describe if this particular kit is helping the regaining back of the perception. But I would like to say that training is fundamental. Training is fundamental, it’s of paramount importance.

DUHAIME-ROSS: Hm. Do you hope that one day you'll be able to go to a restaurant and review the food and feel like you can trust yourself doing that? 

MICHELE CRIPPA: I cannot say, I cannot answer. I'm sure about that, obviously. Uh, I would like to and I hope so. And come on, for sure. It will be back, come on, yes.

DUHAIME-ROSS: You're hopeful, okay.

MICHELE CRIPPA: Yes, definitely.  

[MUSIC OUT]

DUHAIME-ROSS: How has this whole experience changed how you think about the role of taste and smell in human relationships? 

MICHELE CRIPPA: Completely changed the perception, not just of the sense, but also of the sensory analysis classes. I professionally perceived and used sensory analysis just for training chefs, sommeliers and whatever.

DUHAIME-ROSS: Mhmm.

MICHELE CRIPPA: But now I am very -- I am very happy that sensory analysis could really help not just people with these kind of smell disorders, but also all those people that really want to enjoy the senses of life. 

[MUSIC]

MICHELE CRIPPA: We are living for the past 18 months with face masks on -- 

DUHAIME-ROSS: Mhmm.

MICHELE CRIPPA: -- and for sure, face mask is so important to wear -- 

DUHAIME-ROSS: Absolutely.

MICHELE CRIPPA: But this completely created distance between us and the reality surrounding us. It's the -- the key to open to freedom after this pandemic. Taking care of the sense of smell, taking care of your own sense of taste is so fundamental to regain back the memory of the past and the perception of a joyful life. 

[MUSIC OUT]

***CREDITS***

[THEME]

DUHAIME-ROSS: VICE News Reports is produced by Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, Sophie Kazis, Jen Kinney, Janice Llamoca, Julia Nutter, and Sayre Quevedo. Our senior producers are Ashley Cleek and Adizah Eghan. Our associate producers are Steph Brown, Sam Eagan, and Adreanna Rodriguez. Sound design and music composition by Steve Bone, Pran Bandi, Natasha Jacobs and Kyle Murdock. 

Our executive producer and VP of VICE Audio is Kate Osborn. Janet Lee is Senior Production Manager for VICE Audio. 

Fact Checking by Nicole Pasulka. 

Our theme music is by Steve Bone.  

And I’m Arielle Duhaime-Ross. So as always, I'm going to ask you to please take the time to rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts. It really does help other people find the show. VICE News Reports drops every Thursday. So be sure to check back in next week. 

[THEME OUT]