Introduction to Coffee Reading

What if you could drink coffee and know your future?Coffee fortune telling is now a growing trend.

Fortune telling can be traced back centuries to medieval Europe. During this time, fortune tellers were using splatters of wax, lead, and other substances for their predictions and readings. Once tea was introduced to Europe from China during the 17th century, more fortune tellers transferred over to using tea leaves as the basis of their readings.

Tea leaves reading became more popular throughout places like England, Scotland, and Ireland where it was more widely available to the overall public rather than just contained to the aristocrats. While in tea drinking countries tea leaves became the main source used in fortune telling, in the Middle East fortune tellers used leftover coffee grounds instead. These readings included Turkish coffee, Lebanese coffee, and Greek coffee.

What is coffee reading?

Coffee reading is a form of fortune telling or tasseography. This means it is a way of predicting or gaining insight into a person, their past, and their future, which is usually considered unknown. The term tasseography comes from the French word “tasse” meaning cup and the Arabic words “graph” meaning writing. Tasseography is a larger and broader term that includes reading tea leaves, coffee grounds, and wine sediments. 

What Coffee is Needed?

While various coffee types can be used for coffee readings, traditionally, Turkish coffee is the most common one chosen. This is due to its method of preparation, where coffee sediments are served in the coffee cup. Turkish coffee is made by first grinding the coffee beans into a fine powder. This coffee powder is then boiled in water usually along with sugar. Then transferred to a cup where the coffee sediments settle at the bottom and the coffee is drank from the top. The leftover sediments are used by the fortune tellers to make their assumption and predictions. 

How to Read the Grounds?

Before starting to read the grounds, it is important to note that a person is not supposed to read their own cup and cup reading rituals can vary. These variations depend on the reader or fortune teller as well as the culture and region. However, there are main steps to tasseography that can be followed.

1. Make Turkish coffee and serve it in a small, solid white cup. White cups are preferred for coffee readings because it provides a nice contrast to the dark grounds.
2. Have the person you’re doing the reading for drink their coffee with intent and thinking about their question.
3. Once they are done drinking, have them turn the cup over onto the saucer.
4. Then they will either swirl the cup clockwise or counterclockwise three times while thinking about their question.
5. In some rituals, the person will also be required to put a ring or coin on top of the saucer if their question is related to love or wealth/money.
6. The cup is then handed over to the reader (or you) to interpret.

What to Look For?

The coffee reading interpretations can vary depending how the fortune teller or reader decides to read the cup. In some cases, even the saucer is read along with the cup. Though these readings are based upon symbols, patterns, letters, and numbers, the overall cup can be interpreted in different ways:

1. Past, Present, and Future

This is when the cup is divided into three different sections. The bottom of the cup represents a person’s past, the middle of the cup is the present, and the top area and rim of the cup is the future.

2. Horizontal Halves

In this type of reading, the cup is divided into two sections: a left or right side. This can be used to answer yes or no questions as well as the outcome of events. In order to determine the outcome, the left half of the cup is seen as the negatives and the right side symbols are seen as positive.

3. Five Sections

With the handle pointing towards the reader, the cup is divided into five sections. The handle area is representative of love, the section left of the handle is the present, the section to the right of the handle is the future, the area across from the handle is money, and the bottom of the cup is representative of family and home.

Symbols, letters, and numbers play the largest role in coffee reading. In coffee reading, symbols can have a wide range of interpretation from shapes to food to vehicles to animals and much more. For instance, an airplane can mean a journey, wavy lines can indicate uncertainty, fire means passion, a fish can be a blessing, etc. Letters in coffee cup reading, such as initials, can represent a person from your past, present, or someone you’ll meet in the future. Numbers in coffee cup reading represents time, where things can happen in a certain number of days or months.

While reading Turkish coffee grounds are one of the most popular forms of coffee reading and is still practiced today in the Middle East, United States, and parts of Europe, is it hard to say where the best coffee reading in the world is. This is mainly because coffee reading is a type of fortune telling and can be interpreted in various ways. While the fortune teller can tell you what they see and what they mean, it can be seen in a different light if another person reads it.

We can't see the future, but we can offer you a great instant coffee. Get it here.