Sensory descriptor
Elderflower
A green-tinged floral note from terpene alcohols and cis-rose oxide, or from direct botanical addition.
- Aroma family
- Floral
- Does it indicate a fault?
- No — a normal part of cider and perry aroma
What causes it
Elderflower aroma rests on linalool, hotrienol and cis-rose oxide, with a green component from six-carbon alcohols. In an unflavoured cider the perception arises where fruit-derived terpene alcohols, released during maturation from glycosidically bound precursors, coincide with residual green-leaf volatiles; this is uncommon and generally faint. In a botanical cider the elderflower is added directly, either as flowers or as an extract, which is the usual explanation and a labelling declaration.
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.
Terpenes
The floral and citrus aroma compounds that apples carry only in traces and that hops, spices and botanicals bring in quantity, which is why a hopped cider smells so different from an unhopped one.
Hexanal
The green-apple aldehyde generated within seconds of breaking fruit tissue, which gives fresh juice its cut-grass smell and is largely converted away by the yeast.
What raises it
Processes that increase this character, or preserve it where it would otherwise be lost.
Wood and botanical infusion
Steeping oak in chip, cube or stave form, or bark, root, herb and flower material, in a neutral vessel to flavour a cider without the vessel itself doing any of the work.
Bottle maturation
What happens to a cider after it is sealed in glass — which for most ciders is slow decline rather than improvement, and saying so is more useful than implying otherwise.
Cold maturation
Holding cider at low temperature so that it settles bright, sheds colloidal material and stops changing microbially, without any additive or treatment being applied.
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 Elderflower
Elderflower is one of the most-added botanicals in commercial cider, so most encounters with the descriptor have addition as their cause and the label will say so.
Where it appears in a cider with no botanicals declared, the honest reading is a terpene-and-green-volatile coincidence rather than anything specific to elder, and a more general floral descriptor may be the better record.
Others in the floral family
Blossom, rose, elderflower, hawthorn.
Apple blossom
A light, sweet floral note from terpene alcohols and 2-phenylethanol, distinct from the fruit character of the same tree.
Geranium
The crushed-geranium-leaf note produced when lactic bacteria metabolise added sorbate — a fault with one cause and no remedy.
Rose
The rose-petal note of 2-phenylethanol, a higher alcohol produced by yeast from phenylalanine.
Hawthorn
A heavy, faintly fishy hedgerow-blossom note from trimethylamine and phenylacetaldehyde in ageing cider.
Violet
A powdery floral note from β-ionone, formed by degradation of carotenoids carried in from the fruit.
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.
- Does cider get better with age — Some does. Tannic, dry, bottle-conditioned ciders and ice ciders can gain for several years. Light, fruit-driven and commercially filtered ciders lose their aroma and do not gain anything in exchange.
- Does carbonation change how cider tastes — Yes. Dissolved carbon dioxide forms carbonic acid, so a sparkling cider tastes sharper than the same cider still, and the bubbles carry aroma upwards and scrub fat from the palate.
- What abv counts as low alcohol
- Are there terpenes in cider
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.
National Association of Cider Makers
NACM · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
The UK trade association. Useful for industry-agreed definitions and for the voluntary labelling standards its members work to. A trade body has an interest in how its product is described, so CiderHQ cites it for what the industry says about itself rather than for neutral scientific claims.
Food labelling and packaging guidance
Food Standards Agency / Department for Business and Trade · regulator · retrieved 2026-08-24
Washington State University cider research programme
Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center · university · passage verified 2026-08-24
The single most useful open cider dataset CiderHQ has found. The programme’s cultivar performance database gives juice chemistry, orchard behaviour, bloom and harvest timing and cider-maker tasting notes for 73 cultivars grown at one maritime site over fifteen years, and — unusually — publishes its classification thresholds alongside its figures, so the classification can be checked rather than taken on trust. It also states outright that its results diverge from the English ones. Read in full on 2026-08-24 and transcribed into `data/trials/wsu-mount-vernon.ts`; four published figures were found to be impossible and are withheld there with their reasons.