this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2026
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Today I Learned

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I saw this article at BoingBoing, and had to look it up.

From Wikipedia:

The Aroma of Tacoma, also known as the Tacoma Aroma, is a putrid and unpleasant odor associated with Tacoma, Washington, United States.[1] The smell has been described as similar to the odor of rotten eggs.[2] The odor is not noticeable throughout the city, but is rather concentrated in the Tacoma tideflats and is frequently smelled by motorists traveling that section of Interstate 5.[2]

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[–] fubarx@lemmy.world 32 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Used to drive through there regularly. Yep. It was for real. If the wind blew a certain way or there was a heatwave, it was unbearable.

Felt the same way on a tour of a brewery where they were cooking the hops. Except that had a bit of sweetness. The Tacoma Aroma was just stultifyingly, not as sharp as sulphurous, rotten eggs. More like heavy, warm milk that had gone bad.

All day, every day. Everywhere.

[–] TheFunkyMonk@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I’ll steer clear of Tacoma, but I could live in the smell of hops on brew day.

[–] tpyo@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

It's not a problem really anymore. There's lots of fun things to do in Tacoma if you find yourself in the area. I'm not super familiar, just been through a few times

As another commenter said, it's due to paper mills which use sulphur compounds to turn wood into pulp and those are still common elsewhere in the state

[–] velma@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 hours ago

Yep, the paper mills have long closed down in that area!