>You still didn't answer the postulated general question derived from
>the misconception that scientific work on Puerh in the East (Chinese)
>isn't valid till given a blessing of approval by the West (non
>Chinese). The West may simply have no interest in the subject and the
>East can validate their own science.

It's very difficult to do honest experiments in China. There are
thousands upon thousands of fradulent claims here about nearly every
subject that you could possibly imagine from hygiene to actual
"science." The main concern is credibility here. A "doctorate degree"
can be obtained if you pay the right person or legally within 2 years
and it only involves passing an exam and writing (or copying) someone
elses work. I don't think Mike is being xenophobic at all in his ideas
about Eastern science; he's being real about it. It's hard to explain
unless you've lived here for a period of time....

But, trust me, you want the FDA to examine their medicinal claims.
Here they (mostly HK..so it isn't coming from within, obviously) are
finding more and more stuff over here that cause cancer that people
imbibe daily. The newest was they found malachite-green in fish that
they were exporting; a substance banned by most countries of the world
decades ago...even in China. Some restaurants/exporters here were
adding it into their fish tanks so they wouldn't have to change the
water as much...thus saving money.

The magical, mystery that is the East is a bunch of hogwash. It's
about as mysterious as the back of a dollar bill...the only thing they
are concerned with.