Cider help needed

[Codonohoe]

I did my first cider batch a week ago now. Today I transferred it into a secondary and plan on leaving there for 2 months before I bottle. This was just an experiment with store bough ingredients. I sampled it today and it was nowhere near what I expected. I'm hoping some of the more experienced cider makers can lend their opinion.

Ingredients
5 liters fresh apple juice (Walshes)
250 mls pure maple syrup
1 cup strong tea infusion (fruit and spice)
8g yeast nutrient
1 packet cider yeast

Org gravity 1060
Final gravity 1001

The fermentation happened as expected and it looks as I expected however it tastes completely different. It is very dry and very tart (almost lemony). There is very little body to it either. I was aware from reading various posts that the sugars would ferment out and I would have a dry cider but is the extreme tartness normal?

I would like to bottle condition this and ideally have it fizzy. Is there any way I can back sweeten it and still have it fizzy

[armedcor]

You can use an artificial sweetener like splenda to back sweeten it.

[Codonohoe]

is Splenda non fermentable. If I mix that with some fermentable sugar at bottling, will the Splenda remain as a residual sweetness, while allowing the other sugar to ferment and carbonate the cider?

[armedcor]

Yep the splenda will remain. Be very careful with it though. Splenda is super sweet and it's very easy to over do it.

[brendan pittorino]

To get rid of the tartness (green apple flavour) try to do a malic acid fermentation. It ferments the malic acid into a softer lactic acid