Sensory descriptor
Cooked pear
Soft, sweet, heat-treated pear character, with the decadienoate top note stripped and a lactone-like weight left behind.
- Aroma family
- Pear
- Does it indicate a fault?
- No — a normal part of cider and perry aroma
What causes it
The decadienoate esters that carry fresh pear aroma are thermally unstable and are among the first compounds lost to pasteurisation. What survives, and what heat generates, is heavier: lactones, furanones and Maillard products from pear’s sugars and amino acids. Pear’s sorbitol does not participate in Maillard chemistry, so a heat-treated perry retains its soft sweetness while losing its aromatic definition — a combination that reads as poached or tinned fruit rather than as fresh.
The compounds responsible
Where the molecule is established. Some descriptors in this lexicon name a compound the compound register does not yet hold a record for; those are named in the cause above instead.
Decadienoate esters
The esters that smell specifically of pear rather than generically of fruit, carried in from the fruit itself, and perceptible at concentrations that barely register on any instrument.
Lactones
Cyclic esters that give peach and apricot character, formed from fatty acids and often carried in bound form, which is why stone-fruit notes can appear in a cider months after fermentation.
Sorbitol
The unfermentable sugar alcohol that pears carry in quantity and apples carry only in trace, and the single reason a fully fermented perry keeps a sweetness a fully fermented cider cannot.
Fructose
The dominant sugar of apple juice and the sweetest of the common sugars, which is why apple juice tastes sweeter than its total sugar figure implies and why a stuck ferment leaves sweetness behind.
What raises it
Processes that increase this character, or preserve it where it would otherwise be lost.
Pasteurisation
Heating cider enough to inactivate the organisms that would spoil it, either in the sealed package or in-line before filling, at a measurable cost in fresh aroma.
Juice pasteurisation
Heat treatment of juice before fermentation, which inactivates enzymes and microorganisms, and in doing so removes the wild flora that would otherwise ferment it.
Cellar storage
Holding packaged cider in conditions that let it change slowly and predictably, where stability of temperature matters more than the temperature itself.
The fault it points at
Meeting this descriptor above a certain intensity is how the fault below is usually noticed first.
Fault
A stewed-apple, caramel or jam-like character from heat applied to juice or cider, most often through pasteurisation or hot storage.
Where it is usually met
Fruit and styles this character is recorded in. A record here is where the descriptor is commonly found, not a claim that every example shows it.
About Cooked pear
Commercial perry is often pasteurised, and this is the sensory cost. Because perry’s defining aromatics have such low odour thresholds and such poor thermal stability, heat treatment does proportionally more damage to a perry than to a cider.
It is distinguished from tinned pear largely by degree and by the absence of the metallic and syrup notes that canning adds; the two descriptors are close relatives and panels often use them interchangeably.
Others in the pear family
Fresh pear, pear drop and pear skin.
Fresh pear
Clean, watery, faintly green pear aroma, the base fruit note of perry and of pear-fruited cider.
Pear drop
The sweet-shop confectionery note of isoamyl acetate with ethyl acetate behind it — a fermentation product, not a pear one.
Ripe pear
Full, soft, honeyed pear character from fruit at or just past maturity, heavier than fresh pear and lower in green notes.
Pear skin
A dry, gritty, faintly tannic pear note from the fruit’s skin and stone cells, prominent in traditional perry pears.
Tinned pear
The syrupy, slightly flat pear character of canned fruit, from heat-degraded pear esters over residual sweetness.
Unripe pear
Hard, green, markedly astringent pear character from fruit pressed before it softened.
Williams pear
The intense, perfumed pear character of Williams and Bartlett fruit, driven by decadienoate esters at high concentration.
Bletted pear
Deep, faintly winey overripe pear character from fruit softened past ripeness, met in traditional perry and in medlar-like notes.
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 perry — Perry is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting the juice of pears, traditionally of specific perry pear cultivars rather than eating pears. It is to pears what cider is to apples, and has its own history in the three counties of England and in Normandy.
- How should i store cider — Cool, dark and at a steady temperature. Light causes light-strike in clear glass, warmth accelerates oxidation, and temperature swings push cider past the closure of a bottle that is not tightly sealed.
- Which sugar is most of the sugar in apple juice — Fructose, by a long way. Apple juice carries roughly twice as much fructose as glucose, with a smaller amount of sucrose, and fructose is the sweetest of the three on the tongue.
- Why is sorbitol important in perry — Sorbitol is a sugar alcohol that pears carry in quantity and that Saccharomyces cannot ferment. It passes through the whole fermentation untouched, so a perry can taste sweet while being dry by measurement.
- How is cider pasteurised
- Will pasteurised apple juice ferment — Not on its own — pasteurisation kills the wild yeast — but it ferments readily once a cultured yeast is pitched.
Where to go next
- The sensory model — The thirteen structural dimensions and the twenty aroma families, in full.
- Compounds — The chemistry behind the words.
- Troubleshooting — When a perception turns out to be a problem, this is where it is diagnosed.
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.
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.
Research on pear juice composition and sorbitol in perry
Various journals and institute reports · peer-reviewed literature · registered as competent for this subject
The evidence base for the single most important chemical difference between cider and perry: pears carry substantial sorbitol, which yeast does not ferment, so a fully fermented perry retains sweetness a fully fermented cider cannot.
Cider and perry production technical training material
Peter Mitchell / Cider and Perry Academy · reference work · registered as competent for this subject
Searched again on 2026-08-25 and it remains the one printed source here that a bibliographic check cannot fix, because it is not a published work with an edition. It is course material issued to participants of a training programme, so there is no catalogue record to verify, no ISBN, and no lawful public copy. Its state stays `registered` for that reason rather than through inattention.