i can't find anything to tell me what this tea is. it was bought for
me from china (loose) as a gift and all the info i have is "it's very
expensive". appearance is very unusual: the tea looks like very
tightly rolled black joints - very long, sharp, twisted. you could
poke someone with the ends of each stick. On brewing, the leaves
unfurl slowly and give off the same kind of "air bubbles" the way
silver needles do, and you see that they are *green* not black. the
leaves are long, almost like plant leaves. here is the interesting
part, if you leave the leaves in, the taste turns bitter after about
10 minutes. this is with ONE stick, so i'm not using too large a
portion. one stick unfurls into about 2 long leaves. the unfurled
leaves are flat and kind of yellow-green. the taste is a mild, tea
colour is pale to mid yellow/light-brown.

this isn't silver needle, the length of the needles are very long,
about the length of my index finger. the smell of the leaves in the
bag is actually almost smoky. but the taste is closer to silver
needle/green tea. i found something called "black needle" on the
internet,and the description matches somewhat, but i wouldn't say the
appearance of the tea i have matches the pictures i've seen.

i need to know what this is because i'm curious, but also because i
want to know if i'm brewing it right. also because if it's so
expensive (conversion is about USD $18 for 50g) then i really should
know what i'm drinking.