The harvesting, milling and pressing season has been going on for over two months now. Many tonnes of apples have been pressed of thirty or so different cider varieties.
When I worked at Dunkertons in Pembridge, Herefordshire one of the most common questions was, “are cider apples little, red apples?”
Cider apples can be all sorts of colours, sizes and shapes. So in the autumn of 2004 I got together a group of three apples to show how different they can be with a pound coin to give a sense of scale. From left to right: Cherry Norman, a Herefordshire variety that has a sweet aroma and the cider form its juice is really fruity. Next is Michelin, a French variety first discovered in the nineteenth century named after Henri Michelin a pomologist, the apples produce a soft, mildly astringent cider. And lastly, Sweet Coppin, a Devon variety first discovered in the eighteenth century, the apple is sweet and the cider is a light and useful for blending.
Cider apples can have many varied characteristics in the way they look and the cider they produce.
By Robert West
