Cider apple
Nehou
A Norman bittersweet long grown in English orchards, giving high tannin from a small, late, hard fruit and cropping better than most of its class.
Also written Néhou, Nehou Apple.
- Classification
- Bittersweet — Long Ashton classification
- Harvest
- Late (Late October)
- Single varietal
- Not suited to a single-varietal cider
- Blend role
- Tannin and structure, Bittersweet base, Late season
- Origin
- Néhou, Cotentin, Normandy
- Species
- Malus domestica
- Flowering
- Pollination group 4
- Vigour
- Moderate
- Biennial bearing
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Good
How it is classified
Classified under more than one system. The systems use different thresholds and were built for different fruit, so the answers can legitimately differ — that is a fact about the schemes, not a contradiction.
Long Ashton classification
Bittersweet
Low acid, high tannin. The class that has no real equivalent in dessert fruit and that defines West Country cider.
Basis: Below about 0.45% w/v acid and above about 0.2% w/v tannin.
A full bittersweet in the English scheme.
French cider apple families
Bittersweet · Douce-amère
Low acid with substantial tannin.
Basis: Tannin 2 to 3 g/L and acidity below 3 g/L as H₂SO₄.
Assessed in French practice.
Placed in the douce-amère family at home. Sources differ on whether it belongs there or in the more tannic amère family, which is the usual difficulty at that boundary.
Every classification on CiderHQ names its system. Why there is more than one.
What it contributes to a blend
A direction, not a measurement. These bands are the level of resolution the evidence supports, and they say which way adding this fruit pushes a blend rather than what the finished cider will be.
| Axis | Typical | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Acid | Very low | |
| Tannin | Firm | |
| Sugar | High | |
| Bitterness | Marked | |
| Astringency | Drying | |
| Aroma | Restrained | |
| Body | Full |
Long Ashton acid and tannin ranges for English-grown fruit.
Contributes firm tannin and good sugar from a small fruit, and is used in modest proportion.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Nehou, and for a great deal of cider fruit that is a finding rather than a gap. Bittersweet apples in particular contribute tannin, sugar and body while being close to aromatically mute, and most of what a cider made from them smells of was produced by the fermentation rather than carried in by the fruit. CiderHQ publishes the absence rather than filling the space with descriptors nothing supports.
Measured analysis
Each figure is shown with where and when it was taken. They are not averaged: the same cultivar grown in another climate genuinely gives different numbers, and collapsing them into one would be the most misleading thing this page could do.
Measured on the fruit
Measured on the fruit itself, before anything was done to it. These figures hold whatever was later made from the juice.
| Property | Reading | Where | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fruit diameter | 64 mm | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center |
| 64 mm (58–71) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit | |
| Fruit weight2 readings, spanning 64–125 g | 125 g (96–155) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| 64 g | New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, New York, USA | late 1970sHistoric analysis | AVI / Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1989, edited by Donald L. Downing (ISBN 0-442-22117-7) | |
| Fruit firmness | 64.8 N (60.5–69.1) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Juice yield | 476 L/t | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center |
| Starch pattern index | 7.7 SPI (7.0–8.4) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
Measured on the juice
Measured on juice as pressed, before fermentation. This is where most cider analysis lives and what the classification schemes are defined on.
| Property | Reading | Where | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total acid3 readings, spanning 0.170–0.320 % w/v | 0.120–0.220 % w/v | Long Ashton, Somerset, England | Long Ashton analyses, 1903–1985Historic analysis | National Fruit and Cider Institute / University of Bristol |
| 0.320 % w/v | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center | |
| 0.170 % w/v | Long Ashton Research Station, near Bristol, Somerset, England | 1905–1975Historic analysis | Andrew Lea | |
| Total tannin3 readings, spanning 0.310–0.600 % w/v | 0.260–0.360 % w/v | Long Ashton, Somerset, England | Long Ashton analyses, 1903–1985Historic analysis | National Fruit and Cider Institute / University of Bristol |
| 0.340 % w/v | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center | |
| 0.600 % w/v | Long Ashton Research Station, near Bristol, Somerset, England | 1905–1975Historic analysis | Andrew Lea | |
| Brix2 readings, spanning 14.0–14.6 °Bx | 14.0 °Bx | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center |
| 14.6 °Bx (13.2–15.9) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit | |
| pH2 readings, spanning 4.10–4.60 pH | 4.10 pH | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center |
| 4.60 pH (4.57–4.63) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit | |
| Fructose | 73.3 g/L (52.5–94.1) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Glucose | 31.9 g/L (22.7–41.1) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Sorbitol | 27.9 g/L (23.2–32.6) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Specific gravity | 1.056 SG | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center |
| Sucrose | 41.4 g/L (30.2–52.6) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Titratable acidity | 1.8 g/L (1.7–1.9) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Total phenolics | 1670.0 mg/L (1310.0–2030.0) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
Measured on the finished drink
Measured on the finished drink, after fermentation. Not comparable with the juice figures above: fermentation, fining and time move all of these, and phenolics in particular fall substantially.
| Property | Reading | Where | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pH (finished cider) | 3.92 pH | New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, New York, USA | late 1970sHistoric analysis | AVI / Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1989, edited by Donald L. Downing (ISBN 0-442-22117-7) |
| Total acid (finished cider) | 0.310 % w/v | New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, New York, USA | late 1970sHistoric analysis | AVI / Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1989, edited by Donald L. Downing (ISBN 0-442-22117-7) |
| Total tannin (finished cider) | 0.106 % w/v | New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, New York, USA | late 1970sHistoric analysis | AVI / Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1989, edited by Donald L. Downing (ISBN 0-442-22117-7) |
6 properties here have been measured more than once. The readings are shown as they were taken and are deliberately not averaged — climate, season, ripeness at picking, the age of the tree and the analytical method all move these numbers, and a single figure would hide every one of them. Where a spread is given below a property, it is the distance between separate studies, not the variation within any one of them.
How these were measured
- Titration of pressed juice, reported as malic acid
- Permanganate titration against indigo carmine, reported as tannic acid equivalent
- Titration, reported as malic acid equivalent
- Published as 2.53 inches; converted at 25.4 mm to the inch
- Juice pressed from 25 fruit, 2015–2017 only. Published as 216 mL/lb; converted at 2.204623 lb to the kilogram
- Mean of the fruit sampled per accession; where a bracket is shown it is one standard deviation either side of the mean, not the observed range. Published to two decimal places and shown at the precision CiderHQ displays for the unit.
- Mean of the fruit sampled per accession; where a bracket is shown it is one standard deviation either side of the mean, not the observed range.
- Cornell generic starch–iodine chart, 1–8, where 1 is no hydrolysis and 8 is complete. Mean of replicate fruit; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of it.
- Penetrometer, mean of replicate fruit; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Refractometer on pressed juice. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Titration to pH 8.2 with sodium hydroxide, reported as malic acid equivalents. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Meter on pressed juice before fermentation. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Löwenthal permanganate titration, reported by the source as grams per litre of tannic acid equivalent and stored here as milligrams per litre by exact conversion so that it sits in one column with the Folin–Ciocalteu figures the site also holds. The two methods do not measure the same thing and are not interchangeable.
- Enzymatic assay (Megazyme). Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- D-sorbitol/xylitol assay kit (Megazyme), sorbitol dehydrogenase method. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Titration with alkali, reported as malic acid. Composite figure across many seasons; the source states neither the sample count nor the year of any individual analysis.
- Löwenthal permanganate titration, reported as tannic acid equivalent. Composite figure across many seasons; the source states neither the sample count nor the year of any individual analysis.
- Mean fruit weight as published. The compiler notes that a typical New York dessert apple weighs about 140 g, so most of these are small fruit — which is normal for cider cultivars and is itself the point of the column.
- Titration, reported as malic acid. Analysis of finished cider.
- Meter on finished cider.
- Method not stated by the source, which is a real limitation: different tannin methods give wildly different figures on the same sample.
- English-grown fruit at one Somerset site; Norman-grown fruit is analysed separately in French work.
- A range rather than a value; the per-cultivar tables are unverified.
- A chart position, not a quantity. Almost every accession here scored at or near 8, which says the fruit was picked at or past full starch conversion rather than that the cultivars are alike.
- One harvest at one site. Soluble solids move several degrees between seasons and with crop load.
- A permanganate figure and a Folin–Ciocalteu figure for the same juice can differ by a factor of two. Compare this reading with other permanganate readings, not with a Folin one.
- A composite of Long Ashton analyses reaching CiderHQ through three hands: the station’s own work, a printed compilation (Bulmer’s Pomona, 1987, and Beech and Carr, 1977), and a transcription of that compilation. CiderHQ has seen only the transcription.
- A composite of Long Ashton analyses reaching CiderHQ through three hands: the station’s own work, a printed compilation (Bulmer’s Pomona, 1987, and Beech and Carr, 1977), and a transcription of that compilation. CiderHQ has seen only the transcription. A permanganate figure. It is not comparable with a Folin–Ciocalteu total-phenolics figure for the same fruit, and the two can differ by a factor of two.
- Reaches CiderHQ through a transcription of a 1989 food-technology chapter, which itself printed unpublished 1980 work from the station. Unlike the chemistry in this dataset it is a measurement of the fruit rather than of the finished cider, so it is comparable with other fruit weights.
- Measured on finished cider after a spontaneous fermentation, not on juice. It is not comparable with a juice figure for the same cultivar, and the gap between the two is not a disagreement between laboratories — it is what fermentation did.
- Measured on finished cider after a spontaneous fermentation, not on juice. It is not comparable with a juice figure for the same cultivar, and the gap between the two is not a disagreement between laboratories — it is what fermentation did. The compiler notes these tannin figures run at roughly half the Long Ashton juice figures for the same cultivars, and cannot say how much of that is fermentation, how much is Geneva, and how much is method.
Compare within a study to see where these figures sat among the other cultivars the same work analysed — which is a more robust statement than the figures themselves, because absolute values move between laboratories and the ordering inside one study mostly survives.
Watched in the orchard
What named research programmes recorded about this fruit at their own sites. Bloom, harvest and cropping belong to a place and a run of seasons rather than to a cultivar, so they are reported site by site rather than merged.
WSU Mount Vernon cider cultivar trial
Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center, Mount Vernon, Skagit Valley, Washington · 2002–2017 · Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
Maritime, with cool summers and mild wet winters — the closest North American analogue to the English West Country, and the reason the programme planted European cider fruit here rather than east of the Cascades.
- Mean full bloom
- 19 April
- Harvest
- 17 September
- Bloom density
- 3.4 of 5
- Growth habit
- –
- Bearing
- –
- Rootstocks
- M9
Filed here as bittersweet.
Juice characteristics measured on 250 mL of pressed juice; juice yield from 25 fruit, 2015–2017 only. Bloom density, productivity and blind wood are the site’s own subjective 1–5 ratings. Figures are means across the seasons each cultivar was in the trial.
USDA-PGRU Malus germplasm characterisation
USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, in the Finger Lakes region of western New York State · 2017 · Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit
Humid continental, with cold winters and warm summers moderated by the Finger Lakes — a sharper seasonal swing than any of the European cider regions whose fruit the collection holds, and warm enough in late summer to bring acid down faster than a maritime autumn does.
- Held as
- PI 175544, held as “Nehou”
One harvest season. Fruit assessed for weight, diameter, starch pattern index on the Cornell 1–8 chart and flesh firmness by penetrometer; juice pressed and measured for soluble solids by refractometer, titratable acidity by titration to pH 8.2 as malic acid, pH by meter, total phenolics by Löwenthal permanganate titration as tannic acid equivalent, and glucose, fructose, sucrose and sorbitol by enzymatic assay.
Long Ashton composite cider apple analyses
Long Ashton Research Station, near Bristol, North Somerset, England · 1905–1975 · Andrew Lea
Maritime and mild, with wet autumns and few hard frosts — the climate the English cider cultivars were selected in, and the reason their acid and tannin figures here are the ones the rest of the world has spent a century comparing its own fruit against.
- Held as
- Listed as “Nehou”, early season
Filed here as bittersweet.
Freshly expressed juice, not finished cider. Acid by straight titration against alkali, reported as malic acid; tannin by Löwenthal permanganate titration, reported as tannic acid equivalent. Composite figures across seventy years of analyses: the source gives neither a sample count nor the year of any individual reading.
NYSAES Geneva cider cultivar analyses
New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, New York · late 1970s · AVI / Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1989, edited by Donald L. Downing (ISBN 0-442-22117-7)
Humid continental, with a hotter summer and a colder winter than any European cider region. The compiler suggests the growing conditions may be part of why the phenolic figures sit so far below the English ones, and is careful not to claim it.
- Held as
- Listed as “Nehou”
Analysis of finished cider after a spontaneous fermentation. Acid by titration as malic; pH by meter; tannin by an unstated method; fruit weight as a mean. The data appear to come from a single season, and the original work was unpublished.
In the orchard
- Harvest window
- Late
- Flowering
- Pollination group 4
- Vigour
- Moderate
- Cropping
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Good
Late October into November.
Crops more regularly than most high-tannin bittersweets, which is its main practical merit.
Small hard fruit that stores reasonably.
Late-flowering.
Disease and pest susceptibility
| Issue | Susceptibility | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Scab | moderate | — |
| Canker | moderate | — |
Juice and pressing
- Very low acid
- High tannin
- Good sugar for the size of fruit
How it is used
- A tannin component of English and Norman blends
- Grown in England since the Norman introductions of the late nineteenth century
On its own
Not suited to a single-varietal cider
Too tannic and too low in acid to stand alone.
About Nehou
Nehou is a small, hard, greenish-yellow apple from the Cotentin that has been in English orchards for well over a century. It gives a high-tannin, very low-acid juice with more sugar than its size suggests, and it crops more regularly than most fruit of comparable concentration — which is why growers who want tannin without Kingston Black’s temperament plant it.
It is one of the fruit that makes the case for classifying against a named system rather than in the abstract. The English scheme calls it a bittersweet and stops there; the French tradition it came from argues about whether it is a douce-amère or an amère, a distinction that materially affects how much of it goes into a blend. Neither answer is wrong, and a reader who only meets the English label is missing information the French one carries.
The identification problem with English-grown Normans is real and worth stating plainly. Michelin, Nehou, Vilberie, Médaille d’Or, Le Bret and Bulmer’s Norman were introduced over roughly the same decades, planted together, and propagated locally from whatever was to hand. Old orchards contain trees labelled with all of these names that are not necessarily what the label says, and the modern collections are a better guide to what each cultivar actually is than a farm’s own record of what it planted.
Names, origin and identity
Cultivar naming is the hardest problem in cider fruit data. The same tree carries different names across ten miles, and two different trees have shared a name for two centuries.
Origin · traditional account
Named for the commune of Néhou in the Cotentin. The place-name origin is straightforward; the raising is unrecorded, and the diacritic is routinely dropped in English use.
Related cultivars
Recorded relationships, including the ones this fruit is routinely confused with.
Similar role
Michelin
Introduced to England in the same period and from the same tradition, though far milder.
Often confused with
Vilberie
Both Norman high-tannin bittersweets in English orchards, and both have been mislabelled in old plantings.
Often confused with
Bulmer’s Norman
The whole group of English-grown Normans suffers from unreliable identification.
Fruit that plays a similar part
Cultivars sharing a classification under the same system and a comparable role in a blend. Not a similarity score — a stated relationship.
Médaille d’Or
A small, russeted Norman bittersweet with exceptionally high tannin and sugar, famous in England out of all proportion to how much of it anyone has ever managed to grow.
Bramtot
A Norman bittersweet raised in the Pays de Caux and taken to England in the 1880s, where it was analysed at Long Ashton and grown as a full bittersweet for most of a century.
Moulin à Vent
A Norman bittersweet named for a windmill, brought to England with the 1880s imports and grown there long enough to acquire an English reputation of its own.
Reine des Pommes
A dark red Norman bittersweet with a grand name and a solid reputation, imported into England alongside Michelin and Médaille d’Or and analysed there as a bittersweet of some quality.
Michelin
A Norman bittersweet raised near Yvetot in the 1870s that became, in England rather than in France, one of the most widely planted cider apples in the world.
Dabinett
The most widely planted English cider apple: a small, late-ripening bittersweet whose soft, full tannin ferments into a cider that needs almost nothing added to it.
Where it grows
What people ask next
Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.
- How do you blend cider
- What is a michelin apple
- What is a traditional west country cider blend — Predominantly bittersweet fruit for body and tannin, with a proportion of sharp fruit for acidity and sometimes a smaller share of bittersharps for both. The exact composition varied by farm and by what was in the orchard.
- What is normandy cider
- What is tannin balancing
- What is cotentin cider — Cider from the exposed granite peninsula of western Normandy, where hedged bocage shelters the orchards from Atlantic wind. It holds an appellation of origin whose specification is the strictest of the French five on yeast: none may be added to the first fermentation.
Where to go next
- How cider apples are classified — Why there are four schemes and none of them is universal.
- The blend explorer — See which way changing the proportions moves a blend.
- Blending — What a cider maker is actually deciding when they build a blend.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Long Ashton Research Station cider fruit analyses
National Fruit and Cider Institute / University of Bristol · research institute · registered as competent for this subject · covers 1903–2003
The foundational body of cider-fruit science in English. Long Ashton produced the acid-and-tannin classification that divides cider apples into sweet, sharp, bittersweet and bittersharp, and analysed hundreds of cultivars grown at its Somerset site. Its figures are historic measurements of specific fruit at a specific place, not universal constants — a distinction CiderHQ preserves in every measurement record that cites it.
A Somerset Pomona: The Cider Apples of Somerset
Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001. ISBN 9781874336877 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 2026-08-25
Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against Open Library: Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001, ISBN 9781874336877. The author was Long Ashton’s cider pomologist, which is why this work is registered for Somerset cultivar identity at all — it is the nearest thing to a successor to the station’s own descriptions. No copy was opened. Not digitised in any open collection.
University of Reading / Defra, Brogdale · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
The UK national reference collection for apple and pear cultivars. The authority CiderHQ uses for whether two names are the same fruit, which is the central duplicate-resolution problem in cider data.
Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
IFPC · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
The French technical institute for cider production. The authority for the French cultivar classification families, for keeving as an industrial process, and for the pectin and nitrogen chemistry that keeving depends on.
Traditional record Evidence standard for this record. What that means.