Fortune Telling for Fun: Do Your Own Tea Leaf Reading
By Lynda Forman
Tasseomancy, or tea leaf reading is one of the oldest forms of divination in the world. No one’s completely certain where or when it first came into practice, but the first records of tea use was in China in the middle of the 4th century, B.C. What is known is that tea leaf reading became prevalent in societies throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia, including Scotland, England and Ireland. While becoming proficient at tea leaf reading can be harder than it may appear, doing a simple reading for yourself or friends at home can be a fun way to learn more about yourself, as well as helping to open your senses up!
Do Your Own Tea Reading
If you’ve ever noticed leaves at the bottom of your tea cup or coffee grounds on the bottom of your mug, you might have wondered what they mean. Yes, you can do your own tea (or coffee) reading at home – All you need are some grounds or leaves on the bottom of your cup, and you’re ready to find out what the future may hold!
Set Up Your Cup
The first thing you will want to do is to create a cup of tea or coffee that will give you something to read. To do this, you can 
use loose-leaf tea in your cup, drinking the liquid to leave leaves at the bottom. Or you can simply add tea leaves to the final sips, helping to give the bottom something to read. You can do the same with a cup of coffee, adding a few extra coffee grounds to allow you to see the future when you’re done drinking. Take your time drinking your cup of tea or coffee, thinking about your questions. Once you get to the end, leave a small sip at the bottom of your cup.
Swish and Upend
Once you’re done, you will need to find a saucer or a plate for the next step. Take your cup and swirl it around, allowing the leaves or grounds to move with the liquid. After doing this a few times, turn the cup over and upside down on the plate. Leave the cup there for a few moments to let the liquid run out. Once you have allowed the liquid to leave, then you can begin your reading.
Read the Remainder
Turn your cup over and look to see where your leaves or grounds have landed. To read the remainder, you could pick up a book on reading leaves or grounds, or you could simply look at see what’s there.
- What shapes are present? – Look for shapes in the leaves or the grounds to see what they might be telling you in relation to your question.
- What words are present? – Sometimes, you might see words in the reading, so make sure to look for those as well.
- Are there scenes there? – You may notice that your remainder looks like a scene from a movie or a painting. What does this tell you?
- What symbols are there? – If you are versed in runes or other symbols, look for those. How might those help you with your questions?
You might even want to take the time to draw out the image that you see or take a picture to see if you come up with any meanings the next day.
The more that you practice tea leave or coffee ground reading, the more you will see in the reading. When you do this you will be able to not only divine the future, but you will be able to see what your subconscious is trying to tell you.
Another good practice is to have someone else you know read your tea leaves or coffee grounds to see what they see. They might be able to see more than you can see on your own.
A Note from Savina:
Keep your reading experience fun and lighthearted; don’t take anything you may see in the leaves as fact and always remember that, even if your reading is 1. negative and 2. completely accurate (which is unlikely unless you’re a professional), the future is not set in stone! We build our future by the choices we make every second of our lives, so if you see something you don’t like – make different choices! It’s really as simple as that!
One of the reasons I never recommend that people do divinatory readings for themselves (tarot, pendulum, etc.) for anything more than entertainment and learning is because there is too much of a chance of a subjective response. In other words, if you either want or fear something, chances are very good that that’s exactly what you’re going to see in your divination. Even professional psychics and mediums can have a difficult time doing a reading for someone they care about because of the emotions involved. So, any reading you do for yourself should be for enjoyment and learning only!