Perry Pears in New Zealand

Known varieties of Perry Pears are rare if not unknown. There are some wildings ( which of course how the named varieties came about in the first place in England and Normandy, such as Arlingham Squash which was found at Arlingham in Gloucestershire. There is just one original tree, once lost n...

Isaac Newton and apples.

Isaac Newtown was an early Fellow of the Royal Society. His theory of gravity is well known to school boys the world over. Most is true but some apocryphal features have crept in. Firstly he was not hit on the head by an apple. He watched apples falling at his Lincolnshire house Woolsthorpe Manor...

Cider and Advertising through the ages

This the talk I gave to the 4th New Zealand Cider Festival 2019 Firstly why advertise, a fundamental question. The world is global and unless you advertise your company club etc will be lost amongst the rest. Hence the NZ Cider Festival advertises. TeePee Ciders advertise. And to advertise you ...

Abscission of apples

Apple trees are now often seen with apples but no leaves into autumn. This is because of climate change. The change in prolonging warmer temper...

John Taverner Certaine Experiments Concerning Fish and Frvite

The history of English Cider works of antiquity starts in mid C17th. I until recently would consider Ralph Austen to be the first major english la...

Wooden teeth (cogs) on machinery!

         Wood Cut of Apple Tree, Marco Bussato 1612 Giardino d'Agricoltura.   Ever been to an old water mill in the UK? Hopefully so; there are qu...

William of Cloudeslie

    Not as well know as Robin Hood nor William Tell, William of Cloudeslie and his companions  Adam Bell and Clim of the Clough were 3 outlaws in ...

Cider and the invention of sparkling champagne.

Sir Kenelm Digby Courtier, Diplomat, natural philosopher astrologer, lover. And the inventor of the wine bottle?

Sir Kenelm was born in 1603 he was the son of Sir Everard Digby who was executed  in 1606 for his involvement in the Gun Powder Plot. Kenelm was a ...

Apple Lore. A calendar of apples by Henry Bull

Henry Bull, one half of the Duo Hogg and Bull who gave us the Herefordshire Pomona and also  The Apple Pear as Vintage Fruits. included much more ...

Cider glasses

Cider from the 1640s became a drink of the nobility as well as a farm drink. War with France interrupted supplies of wine and raised national fervo...

Vintage. Its meaning for Cider.

At TeePee Cider we make Vintage Cider. Vintage has two meanings in cider. Firstly cider made with cider apple varieties recognised as making a ...

Ode to Nature

At TeePee Cider we aim to work with rather than against Nature.  An orchard is not a natural place, but it can be a place where Man and Nature c...

Bumble bees and apple pollination.

 Apples trees are rarely self fertile and  apples  need pollen to be transferred from the stamen to ovule, to form. Hence apples trees are reli...

Zork caps

      It seems like just a few years ago that the only quality wine makers using the screwcap were in New Zealand. Cork ruled supreme. Other clos...

The Babycham phenomena

BabyCham, a perry ( pear cider) made by Showerings, initially a brewery company  is key to cider drinks on many levels, juice, storage fermenta...

Cider Tax Riots

Cider was a common drink in the West country from the 14th Century and formed part of wages of labourers until outlawed by the Truck Act of 1887. U...

Devon Colic

Sir George Baker Devon colic  was an illness that affected people in the English county of Devon during parts of the 17th and 18th centuries,...

Scudamore Cider Flute

Two views This flute also called the ‘Chesterfield’ flute, (family descent through the Scudamore-Stanhope family to the Earls of Chesterfield),...

Thomas Knight & the Pomona Herefordiensis

The first illustrated pomology book in Britain and the world was written in 1811 by Thomas Knight, orchardist and fruit breeder. Pomona Herefordien...

Talk given to the 3rd NZ Cider Festival 2018

It was great to be invited to talk at the 3rd NZ Cider festival on the history of cider in its “Golden Era” in England. A time when cider matched a...

John Worlidge 1640–1700

John Worlidge or John Woolridge was an agriculturalist, who lived in Petersfield, Hampshire, England. He was considered a great expert on rural aff...

Cider a Poem in two Books: John Philips

  .     “with notes provincial, historical and classical” by Charles Dunster 1791 An extraordinary book. Cider, A Poem written in 1708 in the form ...

The Rise and Fall of Bulmer’s Cider

The start of industrial rather than rural farm based cider production. Rev Charles Henry Bulmer  the rector at Credenhill   few miles north of Here...

The story of Scurvy, and the role of Cider

When cider was being developed in the UK into a fine product akin to wine on the Continent  in the 17C  and it came to the attention of the scienti...

Glass Wine and Cider Bottles

Glass manufacturing was a closed occupation in Medieval Europe concentrated in Venice and closely guarded  by the guild and Italian authorities of ...

Cork

Cork use to stopper bottles was increasingly used in the 17th C however it was the introduction of the corkscrew, first recorded in 1686 that accel...

Perry

Perry is the half forgotten difficult brother of Cider. Perry is made from pears just as Cider is made from apples. However the drink and the word ...

The curious case of the Cider Token

Up to around AD735 silver pennies for a basis of English coinage. These pennies were the smallest denomination, and if smaller change was needed th...

“An Apple a Day keeps the Doctor away”

This seems to be a rhyme whose origins are lost in antiquity but in fact it is quite modern and well know. It appears in its current form in 192...

Vintage: What’s in a word?

When it comes to cider apples quite a lot of confusion it seems Vintage as a word can be a noun: the year or place in which wine, especially wine o...

Yeast : Great fermentations.

Cider like wine is an alcoholic fermented drink. Alcohol is produced by yeasts. But it is essentially a by-product. The yeast is extracting energy...