scent on Canal
Perkins on Canal, NYC
He was en route to a marked chain coffee shop in Chinatown. I was en route from Office Coffee a stand alone coffee shop within a lifestyle marketplace.
Chinatown is this cultural pot of restaurant chains and individuality. It is a place whose few miles welcome those whose means for a livelihood spill into the streets, bringing smells that can often turn a nose upward.
Nevertheless, it is worth it to walk Canal and its alleyways for discoveries of in-season fish catches, plump fruits remarkably cheaper than well trafficked markets nearby and for sights of the working class, well – working.
Perhaps the day would feel like another day on Canal, if it wasn’t for a scent, masculine and sweet, that cuddled my nostrils and broke to the single file line of stalls, whose scents were weaving through the streets like thread to cloth.
And there he was, a long time friend, appearing in the street, heading to a marked coffee chain and iI coming from an individual one.
He smelled divine, not like the scent of coffee at all, but like coffee : natural, perceptible and special.