Tasseography (also known as tasseomancy or tassology) is a divination or fortune-telling method that interprets patterns in tea leaves, coffee grounds, or wine sediments.
The terms derive from the French word tasse (cup), which in turn derives from the cognate Arabic word tassa, and the Greek suffixes -graph (writing), -logy (study of), and -mancy (divination).
History
Scotland, Ireland, and England have produced a number of practitioners and authors on the subject, and English potteries have crafted many elaborate tea cup sets specially designed and decorated to aid in fortune-telling. Cultures of the Middle East that practice divination in this fashion usually use left-over coffee grounds from Turkish coffee turned over onto a plate.
Method of tea-leaf reading
The Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology, Fifth Edition, Vol. 2 edited by J. Gordon Melton, notes:
After a cup of tea has been poured, without using a tea strainer, the tea is drunk or poured away. The cup should then be shaken well and any remaining liquid drained off in the saucer. The diviner now looks at the pattern of tea leaves in the cup and allows the imagination to play around the shapes suggested by them. They might look like a letter, a heart shape, or a ring. These shapes are then interpreted intuitively or by means of a fairly standard system of symbolism, such as: snake (enmity or falsehood), spade (good fortune through industry), mountain (journey of hindrance), or house (change, success).
Melton's described methods of pouring away the tea and shaking the cup are rarely seen; most readers ask the querent to drink the tea off, then swirl the cup. Likewise, his notion that readers give intuitive interpretations reflects his unfamiliarity with teacup reading; most readers use the standard symbols that have been handed down through several generations. There are, however, many who prefer to read by feel and intuition, as stated by Melton.
It is traditional to read a cup from the present to the future by starting along the rim at the handle of the cup and following the symbols downward in a spiral manner, until the bottom is reached, which symbolizes the far future. Most readers see images only in the dark tea leaves against a white or neutral background; some will also read the reverse images formed by seeing the symbols that form in the white negative spaces, with a clump of dark leaves forming the background.
Some people consider it ill-advised for one to attempt tasseography using tea from a cut-open tea bag or to use a symbol dictionary. The reasons for these prohibitions are practical: tea-bag tea is cut too finely to form recognizable figures in the cup and tea-leaf reading has its own historic system of symbolism that does not correspond exactly with other systems, such as symbolic dream divination.
Fortune telling tea cups
Although many people prefer a simple white cup for tea leaf reading, there are also traditions concerning the positional placement of the leaves in the cup, and some find it easier to work with marked cups. Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing to the present, English and American potteries have produced specially decorated cup and saucer sets for the use of tea-leaf readers. Many of these designs are patented and come with instructions explaining their mode of use. Some of the most common were those that were given away with purchases of bulk tea.
There are dozens of individual designs of fortune tellers' cups, but the three most common types are zodiac cups, playing card cups, and symbol cups.
SO YOU WANNA READ TEA LEAVES?
1. Make the tea correctly
2. Have the subject drink the tea properly
3. Learn the symbols
4. Predict when something's going to happen
5. Determine each symbol's importance
Even though tea has been called a miracle plant, doing everything from helping you lose weight to fighting cancer, it still seems so random that people actually read tea leaves in order to predict future events. You might as well try to "read" a toilet bowl or a piece of gum. Where in the world did the practice come from? Tasseography, as it is sometimes called, is an ancient Chinese practice that spread to Europe with nomadic gypsies in the mid-1800s. And while most people don't take the art of tea-leaf reading too seriously anymore, it is nonetheless a fascinating hobby.
For all you pop culture enthusiasts out there, references to tea-leaf reading can be found in everything from books (Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes), to TV shows (admittedly, mostly on soap operas or X-Files knockoffs), to really bad movies (anything on USA Network).
Sure, it's possible to have your tea leaves read online, but it's so much cooler to know how to do it yourself. It's a GREAT way to completely freak out your friends and mess them up for life. Read on to find out if it's your cup of tea.
1. MAKE THE TEA CORRECTLY
OK, we’ll assume that since you’re reading this article, boredom plays a definable role in your life. For a successful tea-leaf reading, all you’ll need is a melodramatic demeanour, a few kitchen supplies, and a gullible friend that looks equally bored. What you need:
• Loose tea, any flavour. “Loose” tea does not refer to its sexual proclivities; rather, it means that you’re using actual tea leaves that float loose in your cup instead of using a tea bag. We recommend that you use a Chinese tea or one with a minimum of fine-grained dust. If you like your subject (the one whose future you are going to read), let him choose a favourite flavour. If not, use the nastiest flavour you can find.
• A white or pastel teacup with a wide brim. It needs to be white, or you won’t be able to read the dark leaves at the bottom, and it should have a wide brim so that the leaves have a greater area to stick to at the bottom of the cup. If you’re at work, a Styrofoam cup will do, but we’ll have to tell your boss that you’re slacking (…as if she doesn’t already know).
• A wide saucer.
• A teaspoon.
Now you’re ready to make some tea.
1. Place a teapot full of water on the stove. Oh, and make sure the stove is on.
2. Place the dry tea leaves on a saucer. Have your friend stir them around while the water is boiling. Murmur something unintelligible during this stage for drama’s sake.
3. Ask your friend to throw some leaves into the pot (the amount doesn’t matter).
4. Brew the tea without a strainer, making sure that the leaves are loose within the pot.
5. After the tea starts steaming, have your friend pour some into the cup.
6. Let it cool. Sit around, relax, work on your résumé, play poker, whatever.
Reading Tea Leaves
Reading the Cup is essentially a domestic form of Fortune-telling to be practiced at home, and with success by anyone who will take the trouble to master the simple rules laid down in these pages: and it is in the hope that it will provide a basis for much innocent and inexpensive amusement and recreation round the tea-table at home, as well as for a more serious study of an interesting subject, that this little guide-book to the science is confidently offered to the public.
This is probably because the Reading of the Tea-cups affords but little opportunity to the Seer of extracting money from credulous folk; a reason why it was never adopted by the gypsy soothsayers, who preferred the more obviously lucrative methods of crossing the palm with gold or silver, or of charging a fee for manipulating a pack of playing-cards.
It is somewhat curious that among the great number of books on occult science and all forms of divination which have been published in the English language there should be none dealing exclusively with the Tea-cup Reading and the Art of Telling Fortunes by the Tea-leaves: notwithstanding that it is one of the most common forms of divination practiced by the peasants of Scotland and by village fortune-tellers in all parts of this country. In many of the cheaper handbooks to Fortune-telling by Cards or in other ways only brief references to the Tea-cup method are given; but only too evidently by writers who are merely acquainted with it by hearsay and have not made a study of it for themselves.
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