Chemical Characterization of Cider Produced in Hardanger—From Juice to Finished Cider

Our investigation delves into the previously uncharted territory of cider composition from Norway. This study aimed to obtain an overview of the qualitative and quantitative compositions of general chemical parameters, polyphenols (individual and total expressed as gallic acids equivalents), selected esters, and selected C6-alcohols in ciders with the PDO label Cider from Hardanger. In total, 45 juice and cider samples from the fermentation process were collected from 10 cider producers in Hardanger in 2019, 2020, and 2021. Individual sugars, acids, ethanol, and 13 individual phenols were quantified using HPLC-UV/RI. Seven ethyl esters of fatty acids, four ethyl esters of branched fatty acids, ten acetate esters, two ethyl esters of hydroxycinnamic acids, and four C6-alcohols were quantified using HS-SPME-GC-MS. For samples of single cultivars (‘Aroma’, ‘Discovery’, ‘Gravenstein’, and ‘Summerred’), the sum of the measured individual polyphenols in the samples ranges, on average, from 79 to 289 mg L−1 (the lowest for ‘Summerred’ and highest for ‘Discovery’ and ‘Gravenstein’). Chlorogenic acid was the most abundant polyphenol in all samples. Ethyl butyrate, ethyl hexanoate, ethyl octanoate, ethyl decanoate, ethyl isobutyrate, ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, isoamyl acetate, and hexanol were present at concentrations above the odour threshold and contributed to the fruity flavour of the Cider from Hardanger.