Sensory descriptor
Violet
A powdery floral note from β-ionone, formed by degradation of carotenoids carried in from the fruit.
- Aroma family
- Floral
- Does it indicate a fault?
- No — a normal part of cider and perry aroma
What causes it
Apples and pears carry carotenoids in skin and flesh, and these degrade during ripening and maturation into C13-norisoprenoids, of which β-ionone is the most odour-active. Its threshold is in the low parts per trillion and its character is distinctly violet and powdery. Degradation is favoured by acid conditions and by time, so the note builds during bottle maturation rather than being present at packaging. Damascenone, from the same precursor pool, adds a cooked-apple and rose dimension that often accompanies it.
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.
Total phenolics
The single number used to summarise everything phenolic in a juice, useful for comparing fruit and misleading whenever it is used to predict how a cider will taste.
What raises it
Processes that increase this character, or preserve it where it would otherwise be lost.
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.
Tank maturation
Resting cider in stainless steel or a lined vessel, where the point of the container is that it contributes nothing and admits almost no oxygen.
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 Violet
Violet is a maturation descriptor and its appearance is a reasonable indicator that a cider has had time in bottle. It is rare in young cider and rare in heavily filtered products, where the precursor-bearing fraction has been reduced.
It is more frequently reported in perry than in cider, consistent with pear’s higher carotenoid content.
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.
Elderflower
A green-tinged floral note from terpene alcohols and cis-rose oxide, or from direct botanical addition.
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.
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.
- How do you pour bottle conditioned cider — Stand the bottle upright for a day, chill it, and pour in one continuous movement, stopping when the sediment reaches the shoulder. Some traditions deliberately rouse the sediment instead, and both are defensible.
- How is cider matured
- Does cider contain antioxidants — Cider carries apple polyphenols, and tannic bittersweet ciders carry considerably more than pale ones made from dessert fruit. What that means for health is a clinical question this site does not adjudicate.
- What does vintage mean on a cider — On a cider label, vintage means the fruit came from a single named harvest year rather than from blended seasons. In most markets the word is not legally controlled for cider.
- What is still perry
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.
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.
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.
The Science of Cidermaking and associated technical writing
Andrew Lea · reference work · passage verified 2026-08-24
Written by a food chemist who worked at Long Ashton on apple phenolics. Unusual among specialist cider writing in that it is primary-research-adjacent: the author is describing work he did, and cites the literature. This is why it is registered at tier 1 for chemistry while a general cider book is not.