Sensory descriptor
Tinned pear
The syrupy, slightly flat pear character of canned fruit, from heat-degraded pear esters over residual sweetness.
Also called Canned pear.
- Aroma family
- Pear
- Does it indicate a fault?
- No — a normal part of cider and perry aroma
What causes it
Canning subjects pear to sustained heat in sugar syrup, which destroys the decadienoate esters, generates lactones and furanones, and leaves the fruit’s sorbitol and added sucrose intact. The resulting aroma profile — heavy, sweet, low in top notes, with a faint metallic edge from the container — is distinctive enough that most drinkers recognise it instantly. In a perry the same perception arises from the combination of heat treatment and residual or added sweetness, and in a back-sweetened pasteurised perry it is close to inevitable.
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.
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.
Sucrose
The disaccharide of apple juice and the sugar most often added to it, split into glucose and fructose by the yeast’s own invertase before any of it is fermented.
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.
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.
Back-sweetening
Adding sugar, juice or concentrate to a cider that has fermented dry — a straightforward adjustment that leaves the drink microbiologically unstable until something is done about it.
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.
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 Tinned pear
This is a mainstream-product descriptor and a precise one: it identifies a perry that has been sweetened and heat-stabilised, which is the standard route to a shelf-stable sweet perry. Recording it is neutral information about process.
Panels should keep it apart from cooked pear, which is heat without sweetness, and from ripe pear, which is sweetness without heat. The three together map the commonest production choices in commercial perry.
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.
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.
Cooked pear
Soft, sweet, heat-treated pear character, with the decadienoate top note stripped and a lactone-like weight left behind.
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 do i make my cider sweeter
- What is fruit cider — Fruit cider is cider flavoured with another fruit, either as juice, purée or flavouring, added after fermentation. How much apple has to remain varies by jurisdiction, and in some markets very little does.
- 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.
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.
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.
BJCP Beer Style Guidelines — cider and perry categories
Beer Judge Certification Program · classification framework · retrieved 2026-08-24
Opened on 2026-08-24, and the edition matters. CiderHQ registered the 2015 cider guidelines; BJCP has since published a 2025 cider edition, and the old URL now redirects into the current guidelines index. A competition style guide is a dated framework rather than a standing definition, and citing the wrong edition of one is the same class of error as citing a superseded specification. CiderHQ treats BJCP as one competition framework among several and never as the universal cider taxonomy.