How To Taste Cider

Jun 4

On the face of it, the title of this session could be interpreted as being a slightly preposterous question, with “er…just, you know, drink it?” being a not unexpected response. But if you want to dig a little into the nerdery of tasting, there is so much more to assessing a cider than meets the tongue.

The overall perception of our appreciation and enjoyment of a cider is borne out of a host of factors, which we shall now consider.

Context

Where are you who are you with?

Firstly, we need to appreciate that the sensorial appreciation of any drink, including cider, is going to be influenced by your surroundings. To taste X cider with those you most cherish in the summer warmth, at sunset on top of the hill, with leave you with a considerably different impression that if you tasted it on a wet January evening, by yourself in a gloomy living room when Netflix is broken.

Different space, different taste!

Visual Assessment

How does it look?

Someone far wiser than myself once said that ‘the first taste is with the eye’. To simply look at a cider isn’t going to enable the drinker to know exactly what comes next, but it can give a few clues, and gives some degree of expectation management.

We can gain some insight into this by assessing the 3 Cs:

Colour

Is it gold – amber coloured? Maybe we could expect some phenolics and tannin?
Is it pale – straw? Maybe we could expect some lighter aromatics, freshness and acidity?
Is it pinkish? Possibly it has the addition of another fruit, or (more unlikely) it could be made from red-fleshed apples

Remember it’s important not to be prejudicial against ciders that don’t contain the greatest depth of colour. This is not an indicator of ‘quality’, but it, potentially of the fruit used and the end style.

There are no rules or expectations with colour, but it might be wise to treat anything green or grey with suspicion.

Clarity

Is it crystal clear? It is likely to have been filtered to make it nice and shiny – the normal expectation amongst the majority of consumers

Does is have some haziness – it will have been unfiltered at the behest of the maker, maybe because they have a minimal intervention approach, maybe because they want to showcase something different that what is the convention
To be opaque with cloudiness would have been considered a faulty cider a few years back but NEIPA screwed that up!

Carbonation

Is it uncarbonated, i.e. still? This is a cider has been allow to remain in its most intrinsic state
The majority of ciders are carbonated, whether that be through force carbonation or naturally sparkling through bottle conditioning or bottle fermenting.
The is carbonation could be a light tingle, have a fine prise mousse or big bubbles bouncing around

Olfactory Assessment

How does it smell?

Did you know there’s actually two different kinds of aromas? First you’ve got your classic ortho-nasal aromas. This is what is detected when you get near the glass, breathe in through your nose and pick up aromas that naturally occur in nature, emanating from the liquid. The second batch of aromas are detected once you’ve taken a sip of the cider and have breathe out again through your nose.

This action produces a range of different aromas that are picked up our retro-nasal receptors. It’s these retro-nasal aromas that make up a large proportion of what we perceive to be taste.

Smelling is all about trying to detect the aromas in the cider. Some of these might be extracted from the fruit as it undergoes fermentation, for example esters.

Some might be a result of the actions of fermenting yeast, for example sulphur compounds—some are desired, some are not, and some from the actions of yeast and bacteria post fermentation. Such as the phenolics classic to tannic ciders or malolactic fermentation.

Gustatory Assessment

How does it taste?

So true taste, therefore, is using our c.7,000 taste buds to make sense of the presence, if any, of the 5 primary tastes:

Sweet
Sour (aka acidity)
Salty
Bitter (aka tannin)
Umami (savoury)

Saltiness is the only taste not normally found in cider, but sometimes the impression of saltiness can be detected, especially in the presence of acetic acid.

Take a sip, swallow it and breathe out through your nose. And then do it again. It often takes a few sips for your palate to become fully accustomed and acclimatised to the characters, especially if they are intense and not experienced before.

Acidity will be detected at the front of the mouth, a tingling on the tip of the tongue and a salivating streak down the side of the tongue. The sweetness will hit in the middle of the tongue, whilst the tannic component will be detectable near the back and on the swallow.

Mouthfeel Assessment

How does it feel?

An underrated but crucial part of the cider tasting experience, mouthfeel is how we perceive texture in the mouth. Rather cleverly, the trigeminal nerve is activated by chemical compounds in the cider to create chemesthenic sensations – the perception of pain, touch and heat.

Ciders with a higher degree of mouthfeel might be described as full bodied, textured or layered. Conversely, ciders with a lower degree of mouthfeel might be described as thin, one dimensional, or linear.

The nature and degree of mouthfeel perception can be influenced by the intensity of tannin, carbonation levels, sweetness, alcohol content and temperature serve.

And Finally…