New Mexico could be the first state to have an official aroma. We asked readers: what would Pennsylvania’s be? Answers were mixed.

New Mexico could be the first state to have an official aroma: the smell of roasting green chiles. And it’s thanks to a group of fifth graders.

A bill introduced by State Sen. Bill Soules (D., Las Cruces) to mark the state’s official scent made it unanimously through its second committee meeting earlier this month. Now, it’s headed for the state Senate floor.

That got us thinking. If Pennsylvania were to take on an official aroma, what would it be? The answer, unfortunately, doesn’t seem as obvious as roasted chiles.

Answers are varied when it comes to Pennsylvania’s signature smell because, well, different cities and regions smell like different things. Hershey, for example, smells like chocolate, while skeptics say Philadelphia just smells like garbage.

A Google query for “What does Pennsylvania smell like?” brought mixed results. Depending on when they were asked, residents throughout the state reported a sulfuric, funky, or plainly, “like cat urine” smell.

The Inquirer launched a Twitter poll where users could weigh in on the state’s aroma with the following options:

By a slight margin, pretzels came out ahead, with Hershey’s chocolate in second place. Additional suggestions from users included garlic (especially near the Italian Market), scrapple (Pennsylvania Dutch Country), polyvinyl chloride (anywhere along the Delaware River), and weed.

On Tripadvisor — the travel research site — one user asked 14 years ago if residents thought the city of Philadelphia smelled.

“I was talking to someone who’d just moved here and she said she thought the city smelled terrible,” the user wrote. “I don’t really notice, but then, I may have grown used to it. Some days, yes, a little rank, but usually I just think of it as a generic city smell — a mix of carriage horses, trash, subways, street people, pot (I’m near a college), grease, etc. … Maybe it’s a Northeast city smell? Does NY smell the same?”

The consensus within the comments seemed to be that yes, there might be a smell, but it isn’t a distinct one that’s easy to identify and it will vary depending on neighborhood.

“I think it has a smell and I can’t put my finger on exactly what it smells like,” one user wrote.

“Yes, it smells, variously good and bad, especially in the summer,” said another.

Scented candles representing the entire state, on the other hand, leaned chocolaty.

Homesick — which produces candles meant to evoke the recipient’s hometown — has a Pennsylvania candle that’s meant to mimic the “rich fragrance that drifts from the chocolate factory” with caramel, maple, rum, and dark cocoa nib notes. Hello You Candles’s Pennsylvania candle is meant to smell like Hershey’s milk chocolate and cherries.

In New Mexico, Soules visited an elementary school in November to talk about being a senator.

A former teacher, Soules quizzed the students on New Mexico’s symbols, the Washington Post reported. When one student asked, “Do we have a state smell?” The senator said no and asked what it should be — chatter ensued.

That’s when he asked: “Hey, you guys want to be part of history?”

The students made campaign posters to help explain why roasting chiles was the best scent to represent the state and discussed tourism and economic benefits. Chiles are already one of the state’s official vegetables and the town of Santa Fe is known as the “chile capital of the world.”

Soules doubts any “serious opposition” and plans to bring the fifth graders to the state capitol as expert witnesses when the bill is taken up.

We reached out to fifth graders at the Global Leadership Academy Charter School in West Philly. According to the school’s assistant principal, the overwhelming majority of students said Pennsylvania’s official aroma should be cheesesteaks.