Tasseography (or Tasseomancy)

Images: Left. Astrological Chart. Right. The palmist Le Normand.

Reading tea leaves - Tasseography (or Tasseomancy)

Tasseography (also known as tasseomancy or tassology) is a divination or fortune-telling method that in western traditions interprets patterns in tea leaves. The term also refers to the reading of coffee grounds, especially in the Middle Eastern tradition, or the reading of wine sediments.

The terms derive from the French word tasse (cup), which in turn derives from the Arabic tassa (cup), and the Greek suffixes -graph, -logy, and -mancy (divination). The practice of tea leaf reading originated independently in Asia, the Middle East and Ancient Greece. 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.

Modern tasseography is said to have been started by women in the Highlands of Scotland well over two hundred years ago, and is thought to be a modern adaptation of a form of divination known to the greeks, by whom a splash of wine was thrown out of a cup into a metal basin.

Only about half a teaspoon of tea should remain in the cup after drinking.The cup is then picked up by the handle with the left hand,the rim outwards and turned three times from left to right in one quick movement, after which it is slowly inverted on the saucer so that the moisture can drain away.

The nearer the symbols are to the handle, the nearer is said to be the fulfilment of the events prognosticated.Similarly, the nearer they are to the rim, the more quickly may they be expected to occur, the bottom of the cup being concerned with events relating to the remoter future.

The whole idea is to find, in the groups or shapes presented by the tea leaves, some resemblance to wellknown objects, which may be natural or otherwise.Representation of trees, animals, birds, crowns, squares, crosses, etc, may be observed, the importance of the signs being judged by their size.Each symbol is supposed to have some fortunate or unfortunate significance, of which a few examples follow.

List of Symbols