A big fat Harry-Potter-style lightning bolt in the bottom of my cup that Sunday evening was the first warning I had. A source I consulted said it referred to a sudden, startling event or insight, and that any symbol at the bottom of the cup means ill-fortune. After gazing at it in wonderment, I filed it away in my mind. For nearly 48 hours. Then I foolishly become trapped on a bus all night in a blinding snowstorm that featured lightning and thunder in the midnight hour, and I had ample opportunity to rue the teacup’s warning.
I can’t promise you’ll experience any such dramatic results from your own tea-leaf reading, but it can’t be ruled-out either. Tea-leaf reading, also known as either tasseography or tasseomancy, is credited to the Chinese as having been the original practitioners of the art. It’s estimated the Chinese may have been drinking tea for as long as 4000 years, so tea-leaf reading probably dates from around that time. The ancient Romans also practiced some variation of it by reading the sediment left in the bottom of their wine goblets, and reading by coffee grounds is a common practice in the Middle East and other parts of the world. In fact, you can use the information in the PDF for coffee-grounds reading as well. But I’m writing this presuming you’re drinking tea.
Tea-leaf reading falls under my self-created divination category of Artomancy, because reading tea leaves is very much an art. Indeed, I consider it the quintessential Artomancy divination method, which is why I delayed addressing it. There are particular recommended types of loose-leaf tea to use, a particular shape to the cup you should use. There’s a set procedure to getting the tea leaves in place. There’s a particular way you’re supposed to read the cup. In that sense, there’s a science to it. But the actual reading of the tea leaves is an art, which leads me to…