Tasseography

Tea Leaf Reading

Tasseography is a form of divination that involves interpreting images in loose leaf tea leaves or dregs from a cup of coffee. The images are ‘read’ and then interpreted. Derived from the French word for teacup “tasse”, and the Greek suffixes “graph”, “logy”, and “mancy”. Tasseography, also called Tasseomancy, is a divination or fortune telling method that interprets patterns in tea leaves, coffee grounds, or wine sediments. It is a fairly modern style of divination and only a few centuries old. The idea is that your energy gets infused into the tea leaves, which can then form themselves into symbols in the cup to send messages. Divination attempts to gain insight into the natural world through intuitive interpretation of synchronistic events.

The practice of tea leaf reading is one of the easiest forms of divination to learn. The leaves at the bottom of the cup of tea can form symbols and images, much like the shapes we often see in cloud formations, which can be interpreted by the tea leaf reader.

Your readings are more effective when the seeker is sitting in front of you. The reader acts as a medium and, when the seeker sits in front of the reader and drinks from the cup, she passes her energy to the cup, its contents, and back to the reader. This process more fully stimulates the reader’s psychic abilities. Therefore, the physical presence of the seeker is key to a reading, aside from the questionable ethics involved in reading someone’s cup without their prior knowledge or permission.

To begin, choose the loose tea or ground coffee that you will use for your reading. You will also need a cup, saucer, spoon, and tea or coffee pot.

First, steep the tea with leaves directly in the water. Drink the tea. If there is a specific question you have for the tea leaves, keep it in your mind while drinking. when you are near the bottom Swirl the dregs around 3 times, tip the remaining tea into the saucer by flipping the cup upside down on the saucer to drain. Clear your mind. While the cup is upside down, turn the cup around in the saucer 3 times clockwise, count to 3 and then turn the cup back over to read the leaves.

This is where your intuition and personal style come in to play, because there is no right or wrong way to interpret tea leaf reading symbols. The longer you look, the more you will see. It is extremely personal. Much depends on your perspective as well as the situation you have asked the tea leaves for help with. The symbols won’t always be distinct. As always, go with what your intuition tells you. Many tea leaf readers use the bottom of the cup for the past, the middle for the present, and top for the future. If you are still unclear as to the tea leaves’ message, take some time to meditate on the symbols and the problem at hand. As with any method of divination, a little practice goes a long way. There are a couple of ways to interpret your cup as seen below:

After you have figured out which cup reading method you are going to use, you can then pour your tea/coffee/wine and begin. Look for symbols, pictures, or motifs that you recognize.

This is just a few images you might see but don’t let this limit your inner eye. The longer you look, the more images you will see. The longer you look, the easier it will be for you to discern images from the cup. If it helps, you could even create a tea cup worksheet so you can draw out your images and keep track of them over time to help you improve and look for patterns. I plan to make one for myself in the future and once I do, I will post it here. Good luck and happy seeing!