What is tasseography?

2018-07-12

Throughout the centuries, human beings have always harbored a desire to know the future. In order to lift the veil of the future, several methods of divination have been explored. In this article, I intend to let you discover a very unusual one: tasseography, in other words, divination using coffee grounds (among others).

Tasseography, the art of coffee reading

This divination technique uses coffee grounds as a support for clairvoyance. As a matter of fact, that substance can easily lend itself to the process of interpretation, most of all when an experienced practitioner performs the reading.

Tasseography consists in observing the coffee grounds sitting at the bottom of a cup, and interpreting the symbols that appear there, which are never the same for anyone.

Coffee-based divination has existed for centuries, and even if nowadays it is slightly less popular than it used to be, it is still a well-liked method because is it easy to perform. Indeed, a cup of coffee grounds and a little bit of patience is all you need to practice tasseography.

What are the origins of tasseography?

The interpretation of the symbols left at the bottom of a cup starts with tea-leaf reading in Asia. Coffee reading would be developed a little bit later.

The specific origin of tasseography is quite uncertain. All that is known is that this divinatory art was practiced long before coffee first appeared in Western countries.

Indeed, it seems that it came to us from Persia, via Egypt and Turkey. The legend says that women from the harems of the Ottoman Empire had greatly contributed to the development of these techniques. Coffee was brought to Europe by sea, which can explain the appearance of the first tasseography sessions by the end of the 16^th century.

This kind of art was very fashionable during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Then its popularity started to dwindle, but it is nonetheless one of the oldest divinatory arts, and one of the most well-liked ones for its conviviality.

As the ancient saying goes, “Do not believe everything you see in coffee grounds, but keep reading them anyway”. Some people would have you believe that tasseography is among the least reliable kinds of clairvoyance. But this art aiming to read the future is as old as coffee itself. It has survived throughout the centuries so there must be a reason for it. And you could absolutely benefit from that divination method to collect some clues and some precious advice for your future or for your current situation.