No coffee can be good in the mouth that does not first send a sweet offering of odor to the nostrils.

Beecher uses coffee as a homely example to argue that pleasure and quality are often anticipated and prepared for before they are fully experienced. The aroma is presented as a kind of “first fruits” or offering—an initial, sensory promise that conditions the drinker’s enjoyment and signals the beverage’s excellence. More broadly, the line reflects a nineteenth-century taste for moralizing through everyday objects: the best satisfactions, Beecher implies, announce themselves through subtle preliminaries, and the senses work together (smell leading taste) to shape judgment. It also hints at a theology of gratitude, where even ordinary comforts invite reverent attention.