How to read coffee grounds and tea leaves

How the cup is prepared

The two tea-leaf books, one by Cicely Kent and one credited to Highland Seer, describe nearly the same procedure. Both ask for a plain cup with a wide top and no pattern inside, white if possible. The tea is drunk until a little liquid is left at the bottom: about a teaspoonful in Kent, about half a teaspoonful in Highland Seer. The cup is then taken in the left hand and turned three times from the left in one quick swing. Highland Seer adds that the cup is held by the handle with the rim up and turned from left to right. Next it is inverted slowly and carefully over the saucer and left there for a minute, so that the moisture drains away. Neither book describes coffee grounds; the rules were written for tea leaves.

A Turkish article on yemek.com (2014) starts with the coffee. The article calls for a well-made coffee with a little sugar and a foam on top, and says that without sugar the grounds do not bind and spread across the cup. The coffee is drunk at a normal pace, so that the grounds do not all settle at the bottom, and the article wants the sediment neither too hot nor too cold before the cup is covered. The saucer goes on top and the pair is turned once or twice. Turning the cup toward oneself, the article adds, is said to bring news about oneself, and turning it away news about what is outside. A ring on the covered cup is optional: the metal only helps the grounds cool faster, and a coin, necklace, earring or small cold glass would do as well.

Two Russian-language sites give a similar order. On woman.ru, about a tablespoon of coffee is left in the cup, the grounds are swirled three times counterclockwise, and the cup is covered with a saucer and turned over sharply. On kp.ru, a couple of sips are left, the question is repeated aloud, and the left hand makes several circular motions while the right hand holds the saucer before the cup is turned over. Both sites suggest asking a question; woman.ru allows a wish instead.

What Turkish and Armenian readers add

The yemek.com article says that, by custom, one does not read one's own cup, because, it says, one can hardly ever see anything in one's own grounds. It also says that a cup stuck to its saucer is left unread: the sticking is taken to mean that the wishes made over the cup may come true, and opening it could spoil them. After the cup is read, the grounds left on the saucer are tipped into the cup and read too. At the end the cup is washed, because, the article says, water quickly wipes away what the fortune showed and helps it come true. It also quotes a proverb, "Fala inanma, falsız da kalma": do not believe in the fortune, but do not go without it.

Only one Armenian account was found. A 20-year-old student in Los Angeles describes, in the USC Digital Folklore Archives, what her mother and grandmother taught her. When the coffee is finished, she says, the cup is flipped away from the body onto the saucer, and the grounds are left to run down and dry; that wait is the time for talking with family or friends. Reading one's own cup is ruled out, because the reader would see only what the reader wants to see. Cups are read by day, since a cup read at night brings bad luck. She also describes holding the cup, thinking of an intention or wish, and marking the bottom with a finger.

She gives several omens. A cup that sticks and is hard to lift off means that someone is in love with its owner; she says this is what some people believe and what her Armenian grandmother told her. A very dark cup full of grounds means a full mind, and clear spots mean a mind at ease.

The account was collected in 2020 and is not a rule for Armenian readers in general. She gives one symbol with a meaning, a bird, which she says may mean travel or freedom; an egg is named without a meaning, and there is no list. An Armenian Weekly article of 27 May 2026 describes a present-day reader at a pop-up in Houston, Texas; the part of the article that could be read gives no symbol meanings. The USC entry also points to an essay in Armenian Review (2018) on Armenian rituals of tasseography, not read for this site.

How the cup is divided into zones

In the tea-leaf books the fixed point is the handle, which stands for the person asking and for that person's home. Signs near the rim point to events expected soon, signs on the sides to events further off, and signs at the bottom to the far future. Kent adds that signs directly beneath the handle show what is present and immediate. Highland Seer writes that the closer a sign lies to the handle, the nearer its fulfillment.

Wikipedia's article on tasseography describes a Turkish way of reading the cup in horizontal halves: the lower half speaks of the past and the upper half of the future. The cup can also be read in vertical halves to get a yes or a no, and some readers take the left half as negative and the right as positive. Other readers hold that the cup reveals the past but cannot predict events more than forty days ahead.

Russian-language sites read the zones in their own way. According to woman.ru, signs at the upper rim speak of the present and signs at the bottom of the future; blots to the left of the handle carry a negative meaning and those to the right a positive one; the signs around the handle matter most. Both woman.ru and kp.ru put the future in the cup and the past in the saucer, and riamo.ru also reads the saucer as the past.

The bottom of the cup thus means the far future in Kent and Highland Seer, the past in the Wikipedia description of the Turkish halves, and the future on woman.ru. The site does not pick one reading. Each symbol page shows what the sources that mention that symbol say.

Rules from the tea-leaf books

These rules come from the tea-leaf books; where another source says the same, it is named.

• Clearly defined signs count for more than blurred ones, and both books judge a sign's importance partly by its size. Clusters of shapeless leaves are read as clouds: in Kent they mar an otherwise fortunate cup, in Highland Seer they weaken a lucky sign they cover or surround. On kp.ru, the larger the pattern, the bigger the role of the event in a person's life.
• Dots around a sign point to money, and the form depends on the sign itself (Kent and Highland Seer).
• On lines of dots read as journeys, a wavy line means a tiresome or troublesome journey, with difficulties in Kent and losses in Highland Seer. Kent also reads it as indecision about the arrangements and crosses on the line as vexation or delay; Highland Seer too counts crosses as symbols of delay.
• Signs are read together: bad ones can be balanced by good ones, and good ones strengthened by others (Highland Seer).
• A flying bird beside the sign of a letter is a telegram, and the direction of flight relative to the handle shows whether it has arrived or is being sent (Kent; Highland Seer gives the same rule).