Cider apple
Porter’s Perfection
A very late Somerset bittersharp with high acid and moderate tannin, cropping heavily in its on years and barely at all in its off ones.
Also written Porters Perfection, Porter’s.
- Classification
- Bittersharp — Long Ashton classification
- Harvest
- Very late (November onwards)
- Single varietal
- Sometimes bottled on its own
- Blend role
- Acid lift, Late season, Tannin and structure
- Origin
- Half Moon Farm, Burrow Hill, near Kingsbury Episcopi, Somerset
- Species
- Malus domestica
- Flowering
- Pollination group 4
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Biennial bearing
- Severely biennial — a substantial crop only every other year
- 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
Bittersharp
High acid and high tannin together — the rarest and, for a single-varietal cider, the most useful class.
Basis: Above about 0.45% w/v acid and above about 0.2% w/v tannin.
Bittersharp, though at the lower-tannin end of that class; some descriptions treat it as a sharp with tannin.
Long Ashton classification
Sharp
High acid, low tannin. Includes both purpose-grown sharps and many culinary apples.
Basis: Above about 0.45% w/v acid and below about 0.2% w/v tannin.
Recorded alongside the bittersharp placement because the fruit sits close enough to the tannin threshold for both to be defensible, and no single figure resolves it.
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 | High | |
| Tannin | Moderate | |
| Sugar | Moderate | |
| Bitterness | Moderate | |
| Astringency | Noticeable | |
| Aroma | Present | |
| Body | Medium |
Long Ashton acid and tannin ranges, with the tannin band spanning the threshold the fruit sits on.
Gives acid lift with just enough tannin to stop the sharpness reading as thin.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Porter’s Perfection, 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 | 55 mm | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center |
| Juice yield | 558 L/t | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center |
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 acid2 readings, spanning 0.600–0.930 % w/v | 0.500–0.700 % w/v | Long Ashton, Somerset, England | Long Ashton analyses, 1903–1985Historic analysis | National Fruit and Cider Institute / University of Bristol |
| 0.930 % w/v | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center | |
| Total tannin2 readings, spanning 0.220–0.300 % w/v | 0.180–0.260 % w/v | Long Ashton, Somerset, England | Long Ashton analyses, 1903–1985Historic analysis | National Fruit and Cider Institute / University of Bristol |
| 0.300 % w/v | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center | |
| Brix | 13.0 °Bx | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center |
| pH | 3.20 pH | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center |
| Specific gravity | 1.054 SG | WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA | 2002–2017Modern analysis | Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center |
2 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 2.16 inches; converted at 25.4 mm to the inch
- Juice pressed from 25 fruit, 2015–2017 only. Published as 253 mL/lb; converted at 2.204623 lb to the kilogram
- One site, one climate, and a late-ripening fruit whose acid depends heavily on how long it was left to hang.
- The range crosses the classification threshold, which is why this record carries two placements.
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
- 2 May
- Harvest
- 26 September
- Bloom density
- 3.8 of 5
- Growth habit
- Upright Spreading
- Bearing
- Standard
- Alternate bearing
- No
- Blind wood
- 1 of 5
- Rootstocks
- M9
Filed here as bittersharp.
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.
In the orchard
- Harvest window
- Very late
- Flowering
- Pollination group 4
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Cropping
- Severely biennial — a substantial crop only every other year
- Keeping
- Good
November, one of the last cultivars pressed in a Somerset season.
Violently biennial: a very heavy crop one year and almost nothing the next. This is the cultivar’s defining agricultural fault.
Late-flowering, which suits its very late ripening.
Disease and pest susceptibility
| Issue | Susceptibility | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Scab | moderate | — |
| Canker | moderate | — |
Juice and pressing
- High acid
- Moderate tannin
- Modest sugar for a late fruit
How it is used
- A late sharp-and-tannin component in Somerset blends
- Used to extend the pressing season into late autumn
On its own
Sometimes bottled on its own
Made as a varietal occasionally, and the acid carries it further than most. It lacks the aromatic weight of Kingston Black and finishes lean.
About Porter’s Perfection
Porter’s Perfection is a late apple that arrives when the pressing season is nearly over and brings acid with it, which is exactly when acid is hardest to find. Most of the sharp fruit in an English orchard ripens early; by November a mill is working through bittersweets and Jerseys and the blend is drifting towards low acid and high pH. A tank of Porter’s Perfection corrects that at the point where correction is most useful.
Its tannin sits awkwardly on the classification boundary. Enough sources call it a bittersharp that the label has stuck, and enough describe it as a sharp with some tannin that the disagreement is real rather than a transcription error. In practice it behaves like a sharp with backbone: it lifts a blend without adding the drying finish a true bittersharp would.
The tree is vigorous and healthy and the cropping is the difficulty. Porter’s Perfection alternates as severely as any cider apple in cultivation, and an orchard of it produces a glut and then nothing. Producers who use it plan their blends around a two-year cycle rather than expecting an annual supply, which is a real constraint and one that the cultivar’s admirers tend to leave out.
The Burrow Hill association is the one piece of history worth holding onto: this is a south Somerset apple from the Kingsbury Episcopi district, an area that produced several named cultivars in the same period. Whether Mr Porter raised it, found it or merely propagated it is unrecorded, and "Perfection" is a nurseryman’s word rather than a verdict.
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
Credited to a Mr Porter of the Kingsbury Episcopi district. The name and locality are consistent across sources; the date is approximate and the account is orchard tradition.
Related cultivars
Recorded relationships, including the ones this fruit is routinely confused with.
Similar role
Stoke Red
The other Somerset bittersharp used in the same way, with more tannin.
Similar role
Kingston Black
The reference bittersharp; Porter’s Perfection is the later and sharper of the two.
Similar role
Burrow Hill Early
Associated with the same corner of south Somerset, at the opposite end of the season.
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.
Kingston Black
The most celebrated English single-varietal cider apple: a small dark-red bittersharp carrying acid and tannin in one fruit, and a tree difficult enough that its reputation has always outrun its plantings.
Breakwell’s Seedling
An early Monmouthshire cider apple raised in the early twentieth century, sharp with a little tannin, and widely grown on both sides of the border.
Frederick
A Monmouthshire bittersharp with bright red-striped fruit and high acid, the most widely known of the Welsh border cider apples and a genuine single-varietal candidate.
Hewe’s Crab
The historic cider crab of Virginia — small, hard, very high in acid and unusually tannic for an American apple, and probably a hybrid between a cultivated apple and a native crab.
GoldRush
A scab-resistant Golden Delicious descendant released in 1994, unusually high in both sugar and acid, exceptionally long-keeping, and one of the modern American selections that cider makers actively seek out.
Northern Spy
A high-acid New York apple, slow to come into bearing and famously late-ripening, widely used in North American cider blends as the acid component and historically important as a rootstock parent.
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.
- What is kingston black — Kingston Black is a Somerset bittersharp with an unusual balance of acid and tannin, long regarded as capable of making a complete cider unblended. It is difficult to grow well, which is why it is scarcer than its reputation suggests.
- How do i balance acid and tannin in a blend — Acid and tannin do different jobs and cannot substitute for each other: acid gives freshness and microbiological safety, tannin gives structure and length. A blend short of acid tastes flabby however tannic it is.
- How do you blend cider
- How long can apples be kept before pressing
- 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 somerset cider
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.
Traditional record Evidence standard for this record. What that means.