Glossary · Fruit
Dessert apple
Also written eating apple, table apple. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
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.
- Subject
- Fruit
- Also written
- eating apple, table apple
In more detail
Dessert cultivars dominate cider-making wherever no separate cider fruit tradition existed, and surplus or out-grade dessert fruit is a major input to large-scale cider production. Their juice is typically higher in fermentable sugar and much lower in phenolics than bittersweet fruit.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Fruit
Cider apple
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.
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
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.
Cider
Apfelwein
German apple wine: cider fermented dry from culinary and wild apples, usually still or lightly sparkling, sharply acidic and served in the Frankfurt region as a regional speciality.
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.
Hochschule Geisenheim University — beverage technology
Hochschule Geisenheim · university · retrieved 2026-08-24
German beverage-technology research covering apple wine and fruit juice processing, including the enzymology of clarification.