Cider
Cider ( ) is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented juice of apples. Cider is popular in the United Kingdom, especially in the West Country, and widely available. The UK has the world's highest per capita consumption, as well as its largest cider-producing companies. Cider is also popular in many Commonwealth countries, such as India, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Aside from the UK and its former colonies, cider is popular in other European countries including Ireland, Portugal (mainly in Minho and Madeira), France (particularly Brittany and Normandy), northern Italy (Piedmont and Friuli), and Spain (especially Asturias and the Basque Country). Central Europe also has its own types of cider with Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse producing a particularly tart version known as Apfelwein. In the U.S. and parts of Canada, varieties of fermented cider are often called "hard cider" to distinguish alcoholic cider from non-alcoholic "cider" or "sweet cider", also made from apples.
Cider apple
Polyphenols are an important component of ciders, contributing astringency, bitterness, colloidal stability and colour. The content in apples varies depending on cultivar, production practices, and part of the fruit, with the peel of an apple having more polyphenols than the flesh. The primary polyphenol in apples is procyanidins, followed by hydroxycinnamic acids in the flesh and flavonols in peel. Much of the polyphenols in the fruit are not pressed into the juice, because they bind to polysaccharides in the fruit cell wall, becoming bound to the pomace, when the cell wall is ruptured during the pressing process. Procyanidins are especially prone to binding to the pomace with about 30% extracted into the juice. Cider apples can have five times the total phenolic content compared to dessert apples, but there is a limited supply of bittersweet and bittersharp apples in the U.S. to meet the needs of the fast-growing cider industry. Some cider makers add exogenous tannins to improve phenolic characteristics, and researchers are working on improving polyphenol extraction technology. In countries with more well-established cider industries, such as the U.K. and France, there is an adequate supply of high tannin cider apples. About one half of the apples processed for cider in Europe are bittersweet fruit.