Bamboo Flooring -

Years passed. The tea house saw thousands of footsteps, spilled drinks, and the dragging of heavy ceramic pots. While the stone steps outside began to chip and the pine doors began to warp, Chen’s bamboo floor remained bright and unyielding. It was a piece of the mountain, brought indoors—a floor that remembered how to stand tall in a storm.

One spring, Chen selected a stand of five-year-old stalks. They were towering, sea-green pipes, hardened by half a decade of mountain winds. He didn't saw them into rough planks; instead, he sliced them into long, slender ribbons. bamboo flooring

He boiled the strips to draw out the sugars—a secret to ward off the beetles—and then laid them under the sun to dry. Some strips he left pale and blonde, the color of morning light. Others he placed in a pressurized oven, where the heat "caramelized" the fibers, turning them a deep, toasted amber that smelled like burnt sugar. Years passed