Tasseography (also known as tasseomancy, tassology, or tasseology) is a

divination Divination () is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice. Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a should proceed by reading signs, ...

fortune-telling Fortune telling is the spiritual practice of predicting information about a person's life. Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115–116. The scope of fortune telling is in principle ...

method that interprets

pattern A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated l ...

s in

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of south-western China and nor ...

leaves,

coffee grounds Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

, or wine sediments. The terms derive from the French word ''tasse'' (

cup A cup is an open-top vessel (container) used to hold liquids for drinking, typically with a flattened hemispherical shape, and often with a capacity of about . Cups may be made of pottery (including porcelain), glass, metal, wood, stone, pol ...

), which in turn derives from the Arabic loan-word into French ''tassa'', and the respective

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

suffixes -graph (writing), -mancy (

), and

-logy ''-logy'' is a suffix in the English language, used with words originally adapted from Ancient Greek ending in ('). The earliest English examples were anglicizations of the French '' -logie'', which was in turn inherited from the Latin '' -l ...

(study of).

History

Tasseomancy followed the trade routes of tea and coffee and was practiced by both Baltic and Slavic nations. It is closely related to the

Romani people {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , po ...

, whose nomadic lifestyle contributed to the spread of the practice. While tea leaf reading originated in China, likely soon after the creation of tea, various regions practice it with slight variations. Indicating that this form of divination was an oral tradition. It is not considered a closed cultural practice, but oftentimes it is traditional to ask permission from a Romani elder as a sign of respect. Western tasseography can be linked to medieval European fortune tellers who developed their readings from splatters of

wax Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic, malleable solids near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to give lo ...

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

, and other molten substances, which are related to many similar and established rituals in Asia such as

pagtatawas Pagtatawas is a divination ritual in pseudomedicine in Filipino psychology (but considered superstition in Western psychology), carried out by the mangtatawas (literally "user of ''tawas''"). It attempts to diagnose an affliction or psychological ...

. According to different sources, coffee fortune-telling first appeared in the Ottoman Palaces in the 1500s. Arabic coffee is a coffee culture that later spread from Yemen to the rest of the Middle East,

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

and the Balkans, and then to many parts of the world. Coffee started somewhere in the Arab world and

West Asia West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian ...

. When they were bored, the concubines in the Ottoman harem used to drink coffee and tell each other fortunes to chat and gossip.

Method of tea-leaf reading

The ''Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology, Fifth Edition, Vol. 2'', edited by J. Gordon Melton, notes: 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. Regarding interpretation of leaves, according to James Randi, "Leaves on the bottom, we're told, indicate the distant future, those on the rim the immediate future. Tea leaf stems represent persons. Fat stems are fat people, for example."

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.

Coffee reading

Coffee reading (; ; ; ; ) is traditionally practiced using

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

Turkish coffee Turkish coffee is a style of coffee prepared in a '' cezve'' using very finely ground coffee beans without filtering or settling to remove the grounds. Preparation Turkish coffee is very finely ground coffee brewed by boiling. Any coffee bean ...

, as they produce a very thick sediment. The coffee in the cup is consumed, and the sediment is left to settle. There are several variations of coffee reading. They commonly require for the cup to be covered with the saucer and turned upside-down. In the Turkish tradition, coffee-readers often interpret the cup as being divided into horizontal halves: symbols appearing on the bottom half are interpreted as messages regarding the past, and symbols on the top half are messages regarding the future. The cup may also be interpreted in vertical halves to determine "yes" or "no" answers as well as the overall outcome of the events represented by symbols. For example, some fortune tellers may "read" symbols in the "left" half as "negative" events or outcomes, while symbols in the "right" half are "read" as "positive". Other readers may adhere to the belief that the cup is capable of revealing insights about the past, but it cannot predict events beyond forty days into the future. The saucer may also be incorporated into the reading. As with the cup, different variations exist for what the saucer represents, including whether the saucer sticking to the cup indicates a "positive" or "negative" outcome.

Symbols

When a cup of tea or coffee has been drunk, a sediment often remains. This sediment can be known to form patterns or symbols within it, leaving a perfect canvas for interpretation. There are many possibilities of images appearing in a cup. Images formed in a cup are created and uniquely seen by the reader, so it is often said that the only limitation for cup reading is the imagination of the reader themselves. Symbols can be many things, including physical objects and abstract concepts. Often, the reader will interpret symbols collectively for a prediction as well as acknowledging their individual meanings. Symbol interpretation can be drawn from history, statistics, pop culture references, and often nature or how we interact with the world. There are also many classic image interpretations that were developed in Great Britain in the late 1800s as tasseomancy gained popularity as a parlour game.

In popular culture

*'' Qari'at al-Finjan'' (قارئة الفنجان), a classic Arabic song *In the ''

Harry Potter ''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven Fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...

'' books written by

J. K. Rowling Joanne Rowling ( ; born 31 July 1965), known by her pen name , is a British author and philanthropist. She is the author of ''Harry Potter'', a seven-volume fantasy novel series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has List of best-sell ...

, the divination teacher

Sybill Trelawney The following is a list of Hogwarts staff in the ''Harry Potter'' books written by J. K. Rowling. The staff and their positions Teachers and staff members The following teachers and staff members do not have their own articles or are not ...

practices tasseography with tea leaves *In ''

Coraline ''Coraline'' () is a 2002 British dark fantasy horror children's novella by author Neil Gaiman. Gaiman started writing ''Coraline'' in 1990, and it was published in 2002 by Bloomsbury and HarperCollins. It was awarded the 2003 Hugo Award for ...

'', the characters of Miss Spink and Miss Forcible read the protagonist's future in tea leaves *In the episode "Grandchild" on ''

The Waltons ''The Waltons'' is an American historical drama television series about a family in rural mountainous Western Virginia of the Appalachian Mountains / Allegheny Mountains / Blue Ridge Mountains chain, during the economic hardships and mass unemp ...

'', a baby shower for Mary Ellen includes Flossie Brimmer reading tea leaves.

Notes

References

*Fenton, Sasha ''Tea Cup Reading: A Quick and Easy Guide to Tasseography.'' Red Wheel / Weiser, 2002 *Fontana, Marjorie A. ''Cup of Fortune: A Guide to Tea Leaf Reading.'' Wis.: Fantastic, 1979. *Kent, Cicely. ''Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves''. 1922 *Posey, Sandra Mizumoto. ''Cafe Nation: Coffee Folklore, Magick, and Divination.'' Santa Monica: Santa Monica Press, 2000. *Sheridan, Jo. ''Teacup Fortune-telling.'' London: Mayflower, 1978 *Yaman, Beytullah. ''The Art of Turkish Coffee Brewing.'' Ankara: Bilkent University Press, 1987 *O'Reilly, Annie. ''Tea with Annie, a divinitive guide to Tasseomancy and its artistry''. Melbourne: Whiteslaw Press, 2014. *O'Reilly, Roxy. ''The Lady of the Cup''. Perth, Quality Press, 2009.

External links

*
Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves
', by 'A Highland Seer', from

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tasseography Tea culture Divination Romani folklore