Before I moved to Toronto from Montreal in 2007 for university, some of my friends told me the city stinks. And they were right. Often in a good way.

Of all the cities I’ve known, Toronto has the most memorable odours. I usually associate places with sights and sounds: New York City’s imposing skyscrapers, or the pitter-patter of shoes on the steep, cobbled streets of Quebec City.

But when I think of Toronto, the sickly-sweet aroma of cinnamon buns at Union Station often comes to mind.

To researchers and perfumers, this is known as a smell or scent memory. Smell receptors in our nose send a signal to the “olfactory bulb” in our forebrain, which is directly linked to centres of memory and emotion, explained Barry Smith, director of the Centre for the Study of the Senses at the University of London.

“Smell memories are not so easily distorted or contaminated, perhaps because scents are difficult to describe and not bound up with language,” he said. “That means they are less interfered with.”

Although I grew up in Montreal, I can’t really think of any odours particular to my hometown. Tracy Pepe, a perfumer in Toronto, told me it may be because I lived there so long that I’ve become accustomed to its smells.

These days, few people take the time to go out and smell the roses, she said. “We don’t experience stuff anymore,” she lamented, walking along the waterfront. “It’s a beautiful day, and you can’t translate that in an email. I hate to say it, but technology may be holding us back.”

Pepe has been in perfumery for almost 30 years.

Since 1994, her company, Nose Knows Design, has created scents for the likes of hotels and retailers. For the Trump hotel on Bay St. and Adelaide St. W., she concocted an aroma of “champagne and caviar” for the lobby. She’s hush-hush about the raw materials, but said they include seaweed extract from the south of France.

Pepe started out in esthetics and spa management before she found her calling studying perfumery in Aachen, Germany. She apprenticed with an Aveda perfumer in Yorkville, before starting her own company.

In her home laboratory in Brampton, and her shared lab/compounding facility in the Bronx, N.Y., she fiddles around with test tubes, mixing ingredients until she arrives at the right formula.

Curious about what smells I may be missing in Toronto, I asked her to accompany me on a sight-smelling tour.

From algae to cement back notes, here’s what we found.