When staying at a hotel, you may notice a "linen room" next to your accommodation. Upon closer inspection, the room is typically packed with stacks of pristine white bed linens, bath towels, pillowcases, and other fabric supplies. Linen rooms, as a hallmark feature of hotels, frequently appear in TV shows and variety programs. For instance, in the variety show *Dear Inn 2*, participants collaboratively designed a striking painted sign for the linen room, turning it into a distinctive identifier. Similarly, in *The Detectives' Adventures 2*, the fictional T.W.O. Hotel featured a linen room as a key scene for evidence collection, filled with neatly folded bedding and towels. Even in *Who’s the Murderer Season 3*, the linen room played a pivotal role in the fictional Rose Hotel, stocked with white sheets and towels.
But why is it called a "linen room" when it has nothing to do with grass or fabric in the traditional sense? Wouldn’t terms like "textile storage" or "linen closet" be more straightforward? And why are the items inside almost always white?
The term "linen" (布草) has ancient roots, appearing in classics like *The Plum in the Golden Vase* and *The Scholars*, where it referred to ordinary cloth. Historically, "cloth" (布) denoted coarse cotton or hemp fabrics used by commoners, while "grass" (草) hinted at the plant-based origins of these materials—such as cotton or ramie, a key fiber crop in ancient China. Over time, the term evolved in the hotel industry to encompass all textiles, from bedding and towels to tablecloths and chair covers. The room storing these items became known as the "linen room."
The modern hotel usage of "linen" likely stems from the English word "linen," which refers to flax-based fabrics or household textiles like bedsheets. According to *Textile Products and Marketing*, "linen" is the official English equivalent, and China’s national standard for hospitality terminology also prescribes "linen room" as the translation. The adaptation of "linen" into Chinese as "布草" is attributed to a British individual, though the exact reasoning remains undocumented. Some speculate the term was popularized by a Hong Kong-based hotel management company before spreading to mainland China.
Today, hotel linens are no longer limited to flax-based materials. For example,
Another striking feature of hotel linens is their predominantly white color. Whether browsing budget or luxury accommodations on platforms like Ctrip or Qunar, white linens are nearly universal. Brands such as Ji Hotel,
The industry’s preference for white traces back to the late 20th century when Westin Hotels introduced its "Heavenly Bed" sleep system with all-white bedding, a trend soon adopted by rivals like Sheraton and Hilton. Beyond aesthetics, practicality plays a role. Hotel linens endure rigorous washing at 60°C–90°C, followed by 150°C ironing—processes that cause colored fabrics to fade or bleed. Alice, general manager of boutique民宿 brand Aprilavril, noted that outsourced laundering with disinfectants and lye exacerbates color degradation. White linens also eliminate mismatched aesthetics and project cleanliness, aligning with findings from the National Sleep Foundation that white bedding promotes relaxation and better sleep.
To counter uniformity, hotels and民宿s add subtle branding, such as embroidered logos or color-coded stitching for size differentiation. Ultimately, whether called "linen" or another name, what truly matters is quality and service.
[1] Wang Yan. *Textile Products and Marketing*. China Textile & Apparel Press, 2015. [2] Zheng Yan, Lin Kai. "Optimization of Cold-Wash Detergent Formulas for Hotel Linens." *Anhui Chemical Industry*, 2024. [3] Global Times: "Does Bedroom Color Affect Sleep? White Bedding May Help."
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