Comparison
English vs French classification
How does the French classification of cider apples differ from the English one?
In short
The Long Ashton scheme places fruit in four quadrants defined by one acid threshold and one tannin threshold. The French scheme uses the same two axes but cuts them into five families, separating a very tannic amère class from the douce-amère below it, and an aigre class from the acidulée below that.
The extra families are not decoration. French practice uses amère fruit in small proportion for concentrated tannin, and treats it as a distinct blending tool rather than as an extreme bittersweet. English blending vocabulary has to reach for phrases like "a very tannic bittersweet" to say the same thing.
Because the thresholds were set on different fruit in different climates, cross-mapping is approximate. A cultivar called bittersweet in Somerset need not fall in douce-amère in Normandy, and the same tree can move between classes across seasons.
The two things being compared
Each side described in its own terms first, so the table below has something to hang on.
Long Ashton classification
The English four-way scheme — sweet, sharp, bittersweet, bittersharp — set on acid and tannin thresholds derived from Somerset fruit.
French cider apple families
The five-family French scheme — douce, douce-amère, amère, acidulée, aigre — with thresholds set for Norman and Breton fruit.
Where they differ
Dimension by dimension. Where a row needs a qualification, it carries one rather than being simplified until it fits.
| Dimension | Long Ashton classification | French cider apple families |
|---|---|---|
| Number of classes | Four. | Five. |
| Treatment of high tanninThis is the substantive difference between the schemes rather than a matter of naming. | One class, bittersweet, covering everything above the tannin threshold at low acid. | Split into douce-amère and the more tannic amère. |
| Treatment of high acid | One class, sharp. | Split into acidulée and the more acidic aigre. |
| Where the thresholds came from | Analyses of fruit grown at one Somerset site over the first half of the twentieth century. | Thresholds fitted to Norman and Breton cultivars. |
| Assumed methodThe French scheme is not method-neutral: its families make most sense inside French practice. | Blending for fermentation to dryness in the English manner. | Carries assumptions about keeving and slow, low-nitrogen fermentation. |
| Cross-mapping | Bittersweet spans both douce-amère and amère. | Amère has no single English label. |
| Institutional maintenance | Inherited from a research station that closed; carried forward in specialist literature. | Maintained by an active technical institute. |
Notes under a dimension name qualify the whole row, not one column.
When Long Ashton classification is the relevant one
The circumstances in which this is the thing being described, rather than a reason to prefer it.
- The fruit, the literature or the producer is English-speaking.
- You are reading acid and tannin figures reported against Long Ashton thresholds.
When French cider apple families is the relevant one
The circumstances in which this is the thing being described, rather than a reason to prefer it.
- The fruit or the producer is French, or the cider falls under a French appellation.
- The blend distinguishes between moderately and extremely tannic fruit.
A misconception worth clearing up
This comparison exists partly because of the claim below, which is repeated often enough that most readers arrive holding it.
Bittersweet is a universal category, so any tannic cider apple is a bittersweet.
What is actually the case: It is a class under one named scheme with one set of thresholds. The French, Spanish and perry pear schemes all cut the same axes differently, and a classification statement without its system attached does not mean anything precise.
Related comparisons
Distinctions that turn on the same thing, or that this one is routinely confused with.
English vs Spanish classification
The Asturian scheme sorts fruit by acid and bitterness into five classes including a semi-sharp group with no English equivalent, on thresholds fitted to Asturian cultivars rather than English ones.
Long Ashton vs Asturian thresholds
Two schemes measuring the same two things on fruit from different climates, with cut points chosen for local populations — which is why a single cultivar can classify differently under each without either being wrong.
Bittersweet vs bittersharp
Both are high-tannin classes in the Long Ashton scheme; the difference is acid, and it decides whether the fruit can carry a cider on its own.
English vs French cider
Both use tannic fruit, but French practice organises itself around keeving and natural residual sweetness while English practice ferments out and finishes the cider afterwards.
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 makes french cidre different from english cider — French cidre is generally sweeter, lower in alcohol and naturally sparkling, because the French tradition arrests fermentation by stripping nutrients from the juice rather than fermenting to dryness. English cider is more often fermented out and then blended or back-sweetened.
- What is the difference between a bittersweet and a bittersharp apple — Both are high in tannin; the difference is acid. Under the Long Ashton scheme a bittersweet sits below roughly 0.45% acid and a bittersharp above it, so a bittersharp brings sharpness as well as bitterness to a blend.
- How are spanish cider apples classified
- Why does the same apple get classified differently in england and spain
Where to go next
- All comparisons — The rest of the pairs, grouped by what kind of difference is at stake.
- Glossary — Either term on its own, defined without a second thing to hold it against.
- Learn about cider — The background these pages assume, written from the beginning.
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.
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.
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.
Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement (INRAE)
INRAE · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
French national agricultural research. Its Angers programme produced much of the published work on apple procyanidin chain length and on the relationship between polymer size, bitterness and astringency.