Find your fortune sip by sip Reading Tea Leaves is your ultimate guide to the ancient art of tasseography—divination with tea leaves. Traditionally a practical, everyday form of divination often practiced by women, tea-leaf reading gave glimpses into the drama of daily life—who was stopping by after supper and if a letter was on the way. The process is simple: brew yourself a cup of loose-leaf tea, settle down somewhere comfy, and sip it intentionally. Once you’ve reached the bottom of the cup, the tea leaves that remain will take the form of shapes and symbols that can give you guidance, spark your intuition, and even give you a hint of the future. Originally published by an unnamed "Highland Seer" in the early 20th century this new edition has been updated for modern readers and features a foreword by tasseography experts Leanne Marrama and Sandra Mariah Wright. Reading Tea Leaves will teach you everything you need to know to begin reading the leaves yourself. Inside you’ll find a dictionary of symbolic meanings to help you successfully interpret the images you see in the cup, along with ten illustrated example readings to allow you to hone your interpretive skills. Reading Tea Leaves is a warm-hearted invitation to celebrate the small, magical moments we encounter every day.

The art of reading tea leaves has been practiced for centuries by everyone from Buddhist monks to Bedouins to Gypsies. Once very popular in Britain and Ireland and all the countries they settled, including our own, the practice has all but faded away. Now, this concise book provides quick, easy, and fun instructions for practicing tasseography today. The book includes everything needed to become an accomplished practitioner: * a brief history of tea and coffee * advice on brewing and serving * basic rules of tea leaf and cup reading * handy tips for instant readings * an illustrated dictionary of 361 symbols with precise definitions Tea Cup Reading is an essential reference for this fascinating interpretive art.

After a cup of tea has been poured, without using a tea strainer, the tea is drunk or poured away. The cup should then be shaken well and any remaining liquid drained off in the saucer. The diviner now looks at the pattern of tea leaves in the cup and allows the imagination to play around the shapes suggested by them. They might look like a letter, a heart shape, or a ring. These shapes are then interpreted intuitively or by means of a fairly standard system of symbolism, such as: snake (enmity or falsehood), spade (good fortune through industry), mountain (journey of hindrance), or house (change, success). Melton's described methods of pouring away the tea and shaking the cup are rarely seen; most readers ask the querent to drink the tea off, then swirl the cup. Likewise, his notion that readers give intuitive interpretations reflects his unfamiliarity with teacup reading; most readers use the standard symbols that have been handed down through several generations. There are, however, many who prefer to read by feel and intuition, as stated by Melton. It is traditional to read a cup from the present to the future by starting along the rim at the handle of the cup and following the symbols downward in a spiral manner, until the bottom is reached, which symbolizes the far future. Most readers see images only in the dark tea leaves against a white or neutral background; some will also read the reverse images formed by seeing the symbols that form in the white negative spaces, with a clump of dark leaves forming the background. Some people consider it ill-advised for one to attempt tasseography using tea from a cut-open tea bag or to use a symbol dictionary. The reasons for these prohibitions are practical: tea-bag tea is cut too finely to form recognizable figures in the cup and tea-leaf reading has its own historic system of symbolism that does not correspond exactly with other systems, such as symbolic dream divination.