Introduction to the Tea Leaves

By Kim Huggens

Tasseomancy, or tea-leaf reading as it is more widely known, seems to be in the realm of the housewife, or in that of the elderly wise woman of the early 20th century... It certainly doesn't bear as much esteem or mystery as the Tarot or palm reading, yet out of the dozens of divination systems I have explored in the past 11 years, this is one of the simplest and yet most effective. And as I found out, it needn't remain confined to the elderly woman's rocking chair or the bored housewife's afternoon cake and tea meetings: this divination system is easily accessible, quick to get the hang of, cheaper than most other systems, and fun.

Tea leaf reading works when you - the reader - interpret the shapes that the clumps of tea-leaves form. Everything is left up to you and your intuition to decide what those shapes are, what they mean, and what they mean in relation to the questioner.

A word about interpreting:

You will find that when you see shapes in the tea-leaves, you get clichés, adages, or well-known phrases popping into your head: these are often useful in interpreting what you see. Whatever the shapes are, be sure to pay attention to your initial thoughts: they usually provide valuable information for the reading.

One difficulty when working with shapes in a tea cup is that if reading for somebody else, they may see the shape differently to you in more ways than one: firstly, what you see as a cat, they may see as a baby, and secondly even if you both see the same shape, you may interpret it differently. For instance, for some the snake is a symbol of sin and evil, but for others it is a symbol of sexuality. When either of the two situations above arise, it is usually best to go with what the questioner says: after all, it's their question- their life you are looking for answers to- so any symbol that comes up should be meaningful for them. Only the questioner knows their life properly and your main role as a reader is to guide them to the path along which they will find answers for themselves, not to put the answers into their mouths.

How to read the tea leaves:

It would be desirable to get a wide brimmed tea cup with saucer, and of course loose tea-leaves. These need to be heavy ones such as Earl Grey or Darjeeling, because if you use lighter ones that come in teabags, you'll be drinking the leaves with the tea as they won't sink to the bottom like heavy teas would. Preparing the tea in the old fashioned way is preferable here - and no putting tea leaves in the kettle (you know who you are!)

1. Put sufficient warm water for two cups into a kettle and bring it to the boil.
2. Put three teaspoons of tea into a tea pot (NOT a kettle!) and pour the water into the pot.
3. Leave for about 3 minutes without stirring, but up to 6 minutes if you want really strong tea.
4. Stir, and pour a cup of tea for yourself and the questioner.

Now that you've managed to make tea the old-fashioned way, drink up, talking to the questioner about what they want to know. Maybe offer biscuits or cakes, and try to be warm and friendly. Oh, and if you don't like tea, you could always pour it away instead of drinking it- so long as you leave a small drop in the bottom of the cup to allow the tea-leaves to form their shapes.

The actual reading:

1. Drink/pour away enough tea to leave a tiny splash in the bottom of the cup, as mentioned above.
2. Ask the question and get the questioner to turn the cup upside down on a saucer, twist it three times, then bring it back up to they can see the cup, making sure the handle is towards them.
3. Both blink, then discuss the first shape you see in the clumps when you open your eyes.
4. It is traditionally thought that different parts of the cup represent different times of life. The traditional associations are:

   Near the Cup Brim - Near future, e.g. days/weeks
   Near the Cup Bottom - Far away future, e.g. months, years.

   Or alternatively:

   Left of Cup Handle - Things passing from the present into the past
   Right of Cup Handle - Future

   You could also divide the cup into imaginary quarters and assign the North quarter to family, home, and work things; the East to travel, education, communication and friends; the South to spirituality, ideas, lovers, and conflicts; and the West to emotions, love, fears, and dreams. Yet another idea would be to divide the cup into 12 sections, one for each zodiac sign:

   Section 1:	Aries	Personality, Self, Behaviours
   Section 2:	Taurus	Possessions, values
   Section 3:	Gemini	Communication, learning
   Section 4:	Cancer	Family, home
   Section 5:	Leo	View of self, love life, creativity
   Section 6:	Virgo	Work, daily routine, health, responsibilities
   Section 7:	Libra	Legalities, contracts, enemies, friends
   Section 8:	Scorpio	Sexuality, sex life, joint endeavours, desires
   Section 9:	Sagittarius	Philosophy, religion, travel, further studies
   Section 10:	Capricorn	Reputation, career, ambition,
   Section 11:	Aquarius	Spirituality, friendships, life goals
   Section 12:	Pisces	Secrets, inner self.

   With this method, you won't always get a shape in all of the sections: sometimes you will find that there are only shapes in, say, nine of them. If this happens, then it usually means that there is nothing worthwhile telling about in those sections! All of the above ideas work better when the questioner doesn't have a specific question, but instead just wants to know what is in store for them in the next, say, 6 months. You could change the last idea slightly by using one section for each month of the year instead of zodiac signs, with Section 1 representing the month after the one you are doing the reading in. So, if you are doing the reading in March, section 1 would be for April. For specific questions you may not want to use any kind of segmenting of the cup at all, since you probably won't need it: all you need to do is simply ask the question and interpret the symbols which feature most predominantly in the cup.

I am not going to include a list of any symbols and their meanings, because it is un-necessary. As I said before, often the questioner will have their own interpretation for the shapes they see, and the art of tasseomancy would be spoiled if one relied on book-meanings alone.