Glossary · Fruit
Cider apple
Definition
An apple cultivar selected for fermentation rather than for eating or cooking, valued for juice yield, sugar, tannin and acid rather than for texture or appearance.
- Subject
- Fruit
In more detail
The category is functional, not botanical. What distinguishes a true cider apple from a dessert apple is usually tannin: bittersweet and bittersharp fruit carry phenolic levels that would make them unpleasant to eat but which give cider body, bitterness, astringency and the capacity to age. Many are also small, irregular and prone to rots — faults that matter for a table apple and not at all for a mill.
Not every cider is made from cider apples. Asturian, Basque and much North American and central European cider is made largely from sharp or culinary fruit, giving a lighter, more acidic drink with little tannin. The West Country tradition of tannic fruit is one approach among several, not the definition of the drink.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Fruit
Bittersweet
In the Long Ashton classification, a cider apple low in acid — conventionally below about 0.45 per cent — and high in tannin, above about 0.2 per cent. Bittersweets form the structural base of West Country cider.
Fruit
Bittersharp
In the Long Ashton classification, a cider apple high in both acid and tannin — conventionally above about 0.45 per cent acid and 0.2 per cent tannin. The smallest of the four classes and the most self-sufficient.
Fruit
Sharp
In the Long Ashton classification, a cider apple high in acid and low in tannin. Sharps supply freshness and lower the pH of a blend into a range where spoilage organisms are less comfortable.
Fruit
Sweet
In the Long Ashton classification, a cider apple low in both acid and tannin. Sweet fruit contributes sugar, alcohol and volume but little structure, and makes a bland cider on its own.
Fruit
Dessert apple
An apple grown to be eaten fresh. In cider terms, dessert fruit contributes sugar, acid and aroma but almost no tannin, so ciders made from it are light and need blending or process character for structure.
Fruit
Culinary apple
An apple grown for cooking, typically large, high in acid and low in tannin. Culinary fruit is used in cider chiefly to raise acidity and lower pH in a blend dominated by low-acid apples.
Fruit
Vintage quality
A traditional West Country designation for a cider apple capable of making a balanced, complete cider on its own, without blending. It is a judgement about the fruit, not a statement about a harvest year.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
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.
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.
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.