Day 22 of the Dammann Freres advent calendar. This doesn’t taste bad, per se, but the dry leaf definitely smells better (or at least more interesting) than the brewed tea tastes. The dry leaf smells very clearly of candy apple and maraschino cherry. I so wish that those flavors had translated more clearly into the brew itself! This uses the same black tea base as so many of the other flavored black teas in this advent calendar. It’s a bit dry, a bit malty, and rather reminds me of black bread. It also dominates the sip. The caramel apple and maraschino cherry flavors show up delicately, mostly at the end of the sip. I know that’s the thing with a lot of French teas, for the flavoring to be very delicate, but I find that frustrating when the base tea being used is the same one over and over again. Maybe if it was a base that I really loved, I’d be more open to it, but DF’s standard black tea base unfortunately just isn’t that.