Sensory descriptor
Unripe pear
Hard, green, markedly astringent pear character from fruit pressed before it softened.
- Aroma family
- Pear
- Does it indicate a fault?
- No — a normal part of cider and perry aroma
What causes it
Perry pears reach usable ripeness through a short window in which starch converts, decadienoate esters build and the tannins begin to polymerise into forms that are less aggressively astringent. Fruit pressed before that has all three problems at once: unconverted starch, no pear ester layer, and phenolics at their most reactive with salivary protein. The green aldehyde fraction is at its highest, and the citric and malic acid load has not begun to fall. The result is thin, sharp and drying, and unlike its apple equivalent it usually carries a marked physical grip as well.
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.
Starch
The fruit’s carbohydrate store, unfermentable until ripening converts it to sugar, and the reason picking early costs alcohol and risks a haze that will not clear.
Procyanidins
The condensed tannins of cider fruit, whose chain length — not their quantity — decides whether the mouth registers bitterness or astringency.
trans-2-Hexenal
The sharper, more penetrating green aldehyde of the same pathway as hexanal, made from linolenic rather than linoleic acid, and a marker of underripe fruit.
Malic acid
The acid of apples, which supplies almost all the sharpness a cider has and, through pH, decides how vulnerable that cider is to everything that could spoil it.
What raises it
Processes that increase this character, or preserve it where it would otherwise be lost.
Ripeness assessment
Judging when cider fruit has converted enough starch, loosened enough on the spur and hardened enough for the store to be worth gathering.
Hand harvesting
Taking fruit off the tree by hand into bags and bins, so that it arrives at the store undamaged and with its stalk intact.
Shaking and collecting
Bringing fruit down with a pole or letting it fall, then gathering it from the orchard floor — the traditional way most cider and perry fruit has always been harvested.
Fruit storage before milling
Holding a gathered crop between harvest and the mill, and managing what respiration, water loss and spoilage do to it while it waits.
The fault it points at
Meeting this descriptor above a certain intensity is how the fault below is usually noticed first.
Fault
A drying, roughening, mouth-puckering sensation that outstays its welcome, produced by larger phenolic polymers precipitating salivary proteins.
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 Unripe pear
Perry making is unusually unforgiving about harvest timing because perry pears rot from the core outwards while still appearing sound, so the traditional advice to press within days of the fruit dropping addresses the opposite risk. Pressing early is the error made in avoiding that one.
The astringency it produces does not soften much with age, since the reactive phenolics were never going to polymerise usefully once out of the fruit. Blending is the usual remedy.
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.
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 malic acid and why does it matter in cider — Malic acid is the acid of apples and supplies almost all the sharpness a cider has. It also sets pH, which decides how well sulphite works and how exposed the cider is to spoilage, so it does far more work than its taste suggests.
- 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.
- When are cider apples harvested — In the northern hemisphere the cider harvest runs from about September to November, with late bittersweets such as Dabinett and Vilberie coming in last. Cider fruit is generally picked riper than dessert fruit, and often gathered from the ground.
- What are procyanidins in cider — They are the condensed tannins of apples: chains of catechin-type units whose length decides how much of the phenolic load reads as bitterness and how much as astringency. Two ciders with identical total tannin can taste nothing alike.
- How are cider apples picked
- How long can apples be kept before pressing
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.
Perry Pears
L. C. Luckwill and A. Pollard (eds), published for the National Fruit and Cider Institute by the University of Bristol, 1963 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 2026-08-25 · covers 1963
Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against Open Library, which records the work as Luckwill, 1963, published for the National Fruit and Cider Institute by the University of Bristol. The catalogue entry names Luckwill alone where the standard citation names Luckwill and Pollard as joint editors; CiderHQ keeps both names and records the discrepancy rather than silently following one catalogue. This is the foundational descriptive work on English perry pears and the ancestor of most later variety lists. No copy was opened: it is sixty years old, out of print, and held in research libraries rather than in open digital collections.
Three Counties Cider and Perry Association
TCCPA · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
Peer-reviewed literature on apple phenolics and cider sensory perception
Various journals · peer-reviewed literature · registered as competent for this subject
Registered as a class rather than as one paper, because the mechanisms CiderHQ describes — tannin chain length driving the split between bitterness and astringency, salivary protein precipitation, enzymatic browning — are established across many studies rather than resting on any single one. Individual papers are cited where a specific number is quoted.