Deep in the Anji Mountains of China, the air always smelled of rain and wet stone. Here lived Chen, a craftsman who viewed the vast forests of Moso bamboo not as wood, but as a living clock.

"Oak takes a lifetime to grow," Chen would tell his grandson, " but the bamboo is a restless soul. It breathes with the seasons."

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.

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.