A little fun with Tasseography

Tasseography? That’s a word to leave you scratching you head and asking yourself: WHAT? Surely this must be a made up word! I assure you, it’s not. Tasseography is the art of tea leaf reading. So now you’re immediately stuck with the mental image of an old gypsy lady in the back of a colorfully painted wagon. She’s hunched over a tea cup, staring at the contents intently while in the chair across from her someone fidgets nervously, waiting to hear what the future holds, according to the leaves.

Tea leaf reading is a mystical art which has been practiced since ancient times. Since people first began drinking tea, they have been fascinated by the shapes left at the bottom of their tea cup. The Europeans seem to have adopted tea leaf reading around the mid-1600's, possibly due to the influence of Romani gypsies who practiced the art while traveling from town to town. The gypsies specialized in dramatic proclamations about a future clouded in gloom, but if you crossed their palm with a little extra coin, they would try to remove the curse from you. Their style of tea leaf reading, while entertaining in its shock value, often discouraged sincere seekers who were hoping for genuine guidance and enlightenment from their tea leaf reading.

Want to give it a try? Ok! Here’s a little guide. First of all sit, down and enjoy a nice cup of tea. You need to make your tea the old-fashioned way using a teapot and loose tea. Use a teacup with a wide mouth, sloping side of cups, and a plain, undecorated surface inside of cup. Do not strain the tea as you pour it. To learn to read your own tea leaves, you will need loose tea leaves which are somewhat large. It is best to use a teapot with a wide spout so that when you pour the tea out of it and into your cup, the leaves can easily pass through. Some tea leaf readers recommend using only the highest grade teas and your best china, and all readers advise against using a mug, which makes it hard to look at the leaves sitting at the bottom of your cup.

Part of the ritual of this form of divination is to actually sit down and enjoy the tea and the company of your fellow drinkers before you get started. This is not as silly as it sounds as it allows you to relax and also gather your thoughts.

Before you even start the reading there may already be some early signs to interpret, so pay attention. Bubbles on the surface of your tea means that money is on its way.  If any tea leaves are floating on the surface, then visitors are imminent. The number of leaves shows how many days away they are.  If two teaspoons are accidently placed on a saucer, then you can expect news of twins soon.  If a teaspoon is placed upside down onto a saucer then you will hear news of the ill-health of a close relative.

The person wanting their tea leaves read should concentrate on a question or area of their life that they would like insight into. Drink the tea quietly until about a half of a teaspoon's worth of tea is left in the cup. With your left hand, swirl the tea leaves at the bottom of the cup three times in a clockwise direction while thinking of your question. You can ask a question about yourself, about the past, about the future, or even about someone else in your life. Turn your cup over onto a saucer and let the moisture drain out for about two or three minutes. Then turn your cup back over gently and see how the tea leaves have settled. Once all the moisture is removed, you are ready to have the leaves interpreted.

The cup is held so that the handle points towards the questioner. The handle represents the questioner and his or her home, and the tea leaves are read in relation to the position of the handle. The rim of the Cup represents recent events. Leaves lying closer to the bottom of the Cup indicate events that are more distant in time. The very bottom of the Cup represents misfortunes. Leaves that lie to the right of the handle indicate the future, and leaves to the left of the handle indicate the past. The further away the leaves lie from the handle, the further away the events are in either time or even physical distance.

First take a quick look inside the cup to see if there are any signs that jump out at you. As a general first impression, just a scattering of leaves inside the cup indicates a tidy mind and disciplined life. A lot of leaves indicate a rich, full, busy life.

Any distinct drops of tea that remain in the cup despite the swirling and emptying of the cup, represent tears. A very large clump of tea leaves indicates trouble - near the handle - trouble caused by your own making. Opposite the handle - the trouble is not your fault. Tea-stalks indicate people. Long stalks indicate men. Shorter stalks indicate women. Pale or dark stalks indicate coloring. Slanted stalks indicate untrustworthy people.

Tea leaf readers from all cultures based their readings on objects and images which were common in everyday life. Natural forces like the weather, or animals, people, and even man-made objects each may turn up as a tea leaf symbol. Some modern readers have added contemporary symbols to the list of possible images, for example, using cars to represent travel or roller coasters to represent drama. Other readers are more old-fashioned and like to stick with the universal images that all people have witnessed in their daily lives for thousands of years. As long as the reader is good at interpretation, the images that they choose to work with don't really matter.

Tea leaf reading is a highly personal and subjective process. Because abstract pattern recognition keys into our subconscious, self analysis produces the most relevant reading. One person may see an egg, while another sees a beetle in the same spot. Tea leaf reading is very much like a Rorschach (Ink Blot) Test. We are most likely to recognize symbols having a bearing on or connection with the matter at hand. Therefore, you are the most qualified person to read your own tea leaves.

Tea leaf symbols are broken down into four main categories.

Nature
These include all symbols having to do with the outside elements and their influence on us. Sometimes they can provide a warning of potential danger, or the coming of good luck, but mostly they represent the backdrop upon which we are staging our lives.

 
People

These symbols are types of people or parts of the body (i.e. face, hands, eyes). These images are reflections of what role we are playing in our personal lives and which stage of wisdom we have reached. A person symbol can act as a short-term or long-term influence.

Animals
Animal shapes represent our helpers on the Earth plane. The types of animals which appear in a tea leaf reading often mirror our hopes, fears, or dreams. They can also reveal personal qualities that we are expressing or show us the inner truth of how we are feeling.

 
Objects
These include all the things that man has physically invented. They include tools, toys, clothes - you name it. When these kinds of symbols show up in a reading, they show us what we are doing with our lives. They reflect what we are creating and generating, be it positive energy or chaos.

There are two sets of symbols within the cup for the tea leaf reader to work with. The symbols that they see as an image in white are positive and good in relation to the meaning of the symbol. While the symbols that the see made out of the tea leaves or coffee grounds themselves are negative or bad in relation to the meaning of the symbol. Here’s an example: You are reading the tea leaves and looking at the white spaces. You see an image of an envelope which has the meaning of 'message'. If the image is shown in white, it will be a good message, if the image is shown made of the leaves or grounds, it will be a bad message.

Reading Tea Leaves and Fortune Telling go hand in hand for 1000's of years and can be an interesting experience. The next time you enjoy a cup of tea, try your luck and see what the leaves tell you.