The new year always prompts questions about the future and the art of divination is just a cup of tea away.
The first time I visited Scotland, I stopped in a tea shop on the Royal Mile. It was one of those oddities that seemed to exist precisely for a tourist like me, someone who sought the least flashy but most iconically British experience on Edinburgh’s famous cobblestone slope. It was dimly lit and cosy, with doilies and flowers adorning the tables. And in addition to scones and a cuppa, it offered readings with a resident tasseographer.
Tasseography or tasseomancy is the art of reading tea leaves. Different readers use different methods, and many will hone one to suit their own divination skills, but the basic premise is that the subject drinks a cup of loose-leaf tea – and by loose-leaf, I mean no teabag, no filter – and the reader interprets the dregs of these leaves according to their preferred system.
My Scottish tasseographer was a senior woman with white hair and a lazy eye. She told me someone would give me a white cat. Later, after my reading, I interviewed her about her practice, though unfortunately the audio vanished into a digital void when my recorder battery later leaked. What I remember was that she described tea leaves as “a prop”, not like an object in a play or film but a manifestation of the shape of a person’s possible future. Just as tarot readers use cards, she used the shape of tea leaves.
The history of tasseography is quite difficult to trace and there are a few cultural precedents that suggest concurrent evolution. Many Middle Eastern cultures began with reading coffee grounds and included leaves when tea became more widespread. Some historians suggest nomadic Romani people who travelled between the east and west brought the art from Asia into Europe. Reading in the UK and Ireland possibly evolved from the medieval practice of reading other kinds of blobs like candle wax. We don’t have to go too far back to see a corresponding practice of oracle reading from the entrails of sacrificed animals, which the Romans borrowed from the Etruscans.
Tea feels different, more intimate somehow, and an interesting conduit for divination. Not only do we cradle the cup as we drink and touch it to our lips when we sip, we do so slowly compared to other beverages because it takes a longer time for tea to cool. Whether you do it for fun or to seek answers, you won’t be alone trying to read the tea leaves for the coming year. Perhaps we want to be comforted or prepared by knowing what lies ahead, or perhaps we do recognise a force greater than ourselves where our lives are just a storm in a teacup.
As for that white cat, someone did give me one – but that’s another story for another day.
Read next: The Lady of the Cup by Roxy O’Reilly
This article originally appeared in AUSTCS enews 5 January 2021. Mailchimp no longer allows external links to the original newsletter.