Mostly we use mixture of many apple varieties available in the local orchards.  

What is an ideal cider apple like?

Any apple can be cider apple that ends up in a bottle of cider. The ones that make balanced and tasty cider are seen, in the traditional cider countries like Britain, to be the combination of apples that have high levels of acid, tannin, or sugar, and the astringency and bitterness to make more body and balanced structure to the cider. Basically, the apples can be categorized in to four groups: bittersweet, bittersharp, sharp, and sweet. The cider is most balanced if it has more than one variety of apple to bring all the characteristics to the cider.

 

The characteristics of Finnish apples

The story with Finnish apples is quite different. All commercially grown Finnish apples are culinary apples. Of above-mentioned characteristics we have one: sharp (acidic). Sometimes also sweet but not that level of sweetness the traditional cider apples have. This is a challenge we at Lepola have accepted and try to work with Finnish apples as well as we can.

The apple varieties we use

It has been always clear to us that we want to use Finnish apples in our products. The main varieties we use are Lobo, Raika, Rubinola, Amorosa, Jaspi, and Kaneli for example. Jaspi and Kaneli are early Autumn apples, and the others winter varieties. We also use many more but these six are the biggest in quantities.

 

Lobo

Aromatic and acidic apple is one of our favourites to eat! Lobo also makes quite good cider apple as it has moderate acidity and good sweetness too. Many of our products have at least some Lobo in them, as it is the most available from the farmers near us.  

Rajka & Rubinola

Rubinola and Rajka are both juicy, sweet, aromatic, and acidic. Rubinola also stores really well in cool temperatures. We like to use these two apple varieties because they have higher sugar content and also clears beautifully over the maturation period. The apple juice of both Rajka and Rubinola is amazing bright yellow!  

Amorosa

Is red and big apple. Very aromatic, a little spicy, and nicely acidic. We use Amorosa in most of our ciders, as it is well available and makes crisp and fresh cider. This variety is mostly used in our softdrinks too!  

Jaspi & Kaneli

Some of the first apples we press every year. Jaspi is moderately acidic and not very sweet apple. Green colour with red cheeks. Not our favourite to use for cider but works alright blending with other apples. Kaneli (cinnamon apple) is very aromatic, not very acidic apple. We use this mostly in our Heritage cider.   Real cider apples or not, we are happy the choice we have made to use Finnish local apples! You can read more about Real Finnish cider here: aitosiideri.fi   Cheers, Emmi & Aaron