Smelling Bottles: the canonical set
A tray of six to twelve small identical bottles. Each bottle is opaque (or the contents hidden) so the child cannot identify the scent visually. The bottles form pairs: two bottles of lemon, two of lavender, two of coffee, two of cinnamon, etc.
The child picks up one bottle, lifts it to the nose, breathes in, sets it down, picks up the next. By smell alone they match the pairs. The work is done with eyes open; no blindfold needed because the contents are hidden.
What to put in them. Fresh ground coffee, dried lavender, lemon peel, cinnamon sticks, vanilla pods, dried mint, dried rose petals, ground pepper, fresh ginger, orange peel, cloves, rosemary. Combinations of strong and subtle scents help the child build a gradient of discrimination.
Bottle type. Any small opaque or semi-opaque container works. Traditional Montessori sets use small dark-glass apothecary bottles. Kitchen spice jars (with tape over the labels) work. Small baby-food jars painted on the outside work. The requirement is that the contents are not visible through the side.
Cost. A set of a dozen small containers from a charity shop or a kitchen-goods aisle is £5-10. Contents are usually free (kitchen leftovers). A commercial set costs £20-35 but is not pedagogically superior.
Refresh schedule. The scents weaken over time. Fresh contents every two to four weeks keep the material working; longer gaps produce bottles that smell faintly of "something" but cannot be reliably matched.
Tasting Bottles: the harder sibling
A set of small pipettes or cups, each holding a paired tasting solution. Traditional Montessori sets use four pairs, one per basic taste category: sweet (sugar water or honey water), salty (salt water), sour (lemon or vinegar water), bitter (tonic water or very dilute tea).
The child picks up a pipette, places a few drops on the tongue (or in a small cup), tastes, and matches the pair. A small rinse with water between each pair prevents mixing.
The Tasting Bottles are less common in home settings for three reasons.
First, hygiene. Each child needs their own set. The pipettes cannot be shared between siblings without washing and re-filling. This is manageable but adds work.
Second, refresh. Solutions go off within a few days. The material needs restocking weekly rather than monthly.
Third, taste sensitivity. Young children have strong taste responses. A concentration that is "tangy" to an adult can be overwhelming to a four-year-old. The dilutions need to be very mild and calibrated for the child.
How to set up. Four small glass cups or medicine pipettes per child. Four solutions, very mildly diluted: a teaspoon of sugar in a cup of water; a few drops of lemon in a cup of water; half a teaspoon of salt in a cup of water; a tablespoon of tonic water in a cup of water. Taste each before presenting to check the concentration is mild.
Presentation. Show the child how to put a single drop on the tip of the tongue (or sip a very small amount from the cup), swallow, wait, identify. Work through one pair of cups before moving to the next, with a water rinse between.
Cost. Under £10 for cups, pipettes and kitchen ingredients. Possibly the cheapest sensorial material in the cluster.
Why the olfactory-gustatory area is worth doing
Two reasons.
It is the most engaging area for many young children. Children aged three to five find smell and taste fascinating; the senses are largely unschooled in most children's experience and the discrimination work feels like a game. Home families who set up this area often report that it is the material most often chosen.
It supports broader vocabulary. A child who has worked with smelling and tasting bottles has a mental taxonomy of scents and tastes. When they meet the word "pungent" in a book or "aromatic" in a recipe, they have a referent. When a grandparent says "this smells like your grandfather's shed" about the smell of workshop oil, the child can match that to a bottle they have smelled before. Sensory vocabulary grows from sensory experience.
Not doing this area does not harm a child's development in an urgent way. But setting it up is cheap and usually well-received, and a home Montessori shelf that includes smelling and tasting bottles alongside the visual and tactile materials covers the full sensorial area.
Allergies and safety
Three things to check before setting up.
Food allergies. If the family has any nut, dairy, egg or other allergies, avoid those ingredients in tasting bottles. Common Montessori smelling-bottle ingredients (herbs, spices, coffee) are usually safe, but always check for specific sensitivities.
Hygiene with siblings. Each child has their own set of tasting cups or pipettes. Smelling bottles can be shared; tasting should not be.
Very young children. Tasting bottles are not appropriate under two and a half; choking hazards from small cups and the difficulty of communicating "swallow only a drop" make them unsafe. Smelling bottles are safe from around two, supervised.
Common mistakes at home
Leaving bottles unrefreshed. Scents fade; old tasting solutions go off. Work a monthly refresh (smelling) or weekly refresh (tasting) into the home-ed rhythm.
Using powerful chemical scents. Essential oils and strong perfumes can overwhelm a child's olfactory system. Stick to mild, kitchen-based scents (herbs, spices, dried flowers) for most bottles; use very small quantities of essential oil if used at all.
Treating the work as a test. "What is this smell?" said as a challenge to the child turns the work into something else. Keep it matching-oriented; the naming of scents comes much later and is incidental.
Skipping because the materials are "not serious enough". Olfactory and gustatory work is part of the AMI sensorial curriculum; skipping it leaves a gap. The "toys in bottles" appearance is misleading.
A real family's smelling and tasting area
A dad we will call Ramesh set up an olfactory and gustatory area with his three-year-old and five-year-old. He used kitchen ingredients exclusively for smelling and made a new set of tasting bottles each Saturday morning.
Smelling bottles: twelve small opaque plastic containers (bought at a charity shop for £3 for a whole tray). Contents: cinnamon sticks, ground coffee, dried lavender, lemon peel, orange peel, rosemary, basil, mint, cloves, ground pepper, ginger and vanilla. Refreshed monthly; ingredients rotated every few months to give variety.
Tasting cups: eight small glass medicine cups. Four pairs of solutions: sugar water, salt water, lemon-diluted water, very dilute cold tea. Made fresh every Saturday; each child had their own four-cup set.
Total cost of the area over the first year: £12 in containers plus kitchen ingredients. The two children worked with the smelling bottles roughly weekly; the tasting bottles were used about once a fortnight, more at first, less as the novelty wore off. Ramesh says the area was one of their most-used and most-laughed-over; the five-year-old now calls out "this smells like a Monday" when passing the bakery, which is a private family joke but also a sign that the olfactory vocabulary is there.