Tea Leaf reading cards

The tea leaf reading workshop was fun. The instructor was 3rd generation reader and taught the traditional techniques as well as her family’s method. My girlfriend was intrigued and for me it was mainly a review.

I prefer to read the tea leaves much like coffee grounds. What is on the rim is immediate and as you go deeper into the cup (bottom) will be the distant future. The only thing you really can’t do is the thumb print wish on the bottom of the cup filled with tea leaves (too messy).

My girlfriend and I played with Rae Hepburn’s tea leaf reading cards into the wee hours of the morning.  There are 200 cards of which 6 are Astral cards depicting a particular theme of life you are wondering about. There are 12 astrological cards which are used in the horoscope reading.  Then 4 additional cards are placed in each zodiac house. Our  horoscope wheel reading took almost 3 hours to interpret since we had to look up the meanings in the book. I also dated and recorded my girlfriend’s reading. We were like a bunch of little girls giggling at the predictions.

The book includes a weekly spread of 7 cards. The horoscope layout mentioned above and the Pyramid layout which uses the Astral card plus 9 cards. The time frame for the latter layout is about 4 months.

You don’t need to memorize the tea leaf cards because there is a sentence on them to give you a clue about the meaning of the card. The book expands the meaning a little more.

I must give credit to the instructor when she told me I would get unexpected company with 2 days. We had an unexpected visitor the very next day.

The Tea Leaf Reading cards would be a fun entertainment when you get together with your friends.

Tasseomancy: tea leaf and/or coffee grounds reading

When I think back to my teenage years (many moons ago, lol) I think my very first exposure to fortune-telling began one summer while I was in high school. My family went on a vacation to Slovenia (former Yugoslavia) and my aunt read my coffee grounds first following by the gypsy fortune-telling cards (Zigeuner Wahrsagekarten). The deck could have been Lenormand as well because I remember seeing the Rider card. My aunt told me when I went back on the long distance trip a young man was waiting for me. This turned out to be my kid’s father. But then again it could have been the Lover card in the Zigeuner deck. 

I saw symbols even before that European vacation. Of course, I didn’t talk about that subject much. I thought everyone saw what I saw and felt what I felt.  I do think my clairaudience started right around that time. You know, that voice which speaks softly to you when you want to listen to it. This voice is different from you Ego driven voice.

This is the same aunt mentioned above sent me the gypsy cards/book in the early 70′s. I almost forgot that there is a section for coffee grounds reading in this 100 year old book which is written in Slovenian. My mom used this same book often for dream interpretation as there was a chapter on that, too. I did find out another Slovenian relative was a channel & was feared in that tiny village where I was born nestled in the Julian Alps. I suppose most people in that part of Europe (Austro-Hungarian empire) were involved in some form of fortune-telling. 

I recently ordered Rae Hepburn’s Tea Leaf Reading Cards. I am looking forward to playing with them. I watched Rae’s video on YouTube (kudos to Spiritsong for the link) & I hope Rae offers more tutorials on her marvellous creation.

Tonight I am engaging in a private tea leaf reading workshop. I am always open and respectful of other people who practice similar hobbies.  I’ll write a short summary on this workshop later.

reading tea leaves continued

In continuation of a previous post on how to read tea leaves, I will conclude this topic with some more symbolic meanings.

I had to laugh the other day when I was drinking a vegetable mixture and looked inside my glass to see a wonderful array of symbols.  I spotted many different figures and scenes.  It was fun to do.  In fact, I notice things like that when I am in company with others because I glance at their empty cup or glass to see if anything stands out.  I don’t forward the information often unless asked.  I find that people tend to ask questions which really should be reserved for a one-on-one consultation.  After all, if you are sitting at a table and a doctor is there, you aren’t going to ask for a diagnosis, are you.  

I think anyone who is involved in one of the Divining Arts deserves the same respect.

In the other post I completed the letter N.  I am only doing a couple of symbols for each letter of the alphabet and some combination examples at the end of the post.  

Tips on reading Tea Leaves

Lesson in preparing for reading tea leaves.
Use a wide cup so the leaves have a chance to form symbols.
Make sure the cup has a handle because it is the starting point for the reading.
The handle is YOU

1. drink all your tea but about a teaspoon
2. make a wish but you don’t have to
3. swirl the leaves around the side of the cup 3x
4. turn the cup over onto the saucer
5. wait about 5-10 minutes to make sure all the excess tea is on the saucer
6. flip the cup over and hold it in your left hand.
7. start reading the images by the handle. These predictions will come true with a few days.
8. any symbols on the bottom of the cup with indicate the distant future. You determine the time frame prior to reading the tea leaves.
9. don’t try too hard to see accurate pictures because they usually are not clear.
10. Don’t rush the reading because you might miss some of the minor details
11. Practice as much as you can
12. Keep a tea leaves prediction journal

Reading tea leaves is lots of fun even if you think you don’t know how.
There are symbols around us everywhere. Many pictures you see within the cup are common sense meanings.
Remember to use a wide shallow cup because it’s easier to see all the interesting forms. Try it- you may surprise yourself.

WARNING: tea leaves readings are addictive. Only read them once a day. If you get into this habit, your predictions will not be more than a couple of days, possibly a week into the future.

Ok here are a some symbols to consider.

Did Madame Lenormand practice Tasseography?

Tasseography or Tasseomancy is the art of reading coffee grounds or tea leaves. I find myself looking into any cup that has residue like chocolate or butter milk.

I had my coffee grounds read by that gipsy woman in Slovenia who also read the Zigeuner Wahrsagekarten deck (I didn’t know it was called that back then) and also by a Greek lady about 20 years ago. Both these woman were very precise in their predictions and they all did materialize.

An older lady I use to visit (to keep her company for a few hours) used to read my tea leaves whenever I went there and explained the symbols to me. I see many of these “tea leaves” meanings found to be quite similar to the Lenormand cards. I find this amusing. I bet you Madame Lenormand read coffee grounds as well- it was popular in Europe.

When you stop and think about it -you can read just about anything that has a form and appears to look like something you can identify- even clouds.

Sometimes when I finish my coffee I let the cup sit for a while (bad habit) before washing it up. Many times I see patterns inside the cup.

A person can surely go mad- if they see signs & symbols everywhere- but they are there, to be read.

Traditionally the handle of the cup is the person being read, provided the cup you are using has a handle. The deeper into the cup you go the further away into the future is the event/or situation. The symbols closer to the handle would represent the now or current time frame. 1/2 way down the sides of the cup would be probably 6 six months or so. Now this will change if you read the cup every day. For example if the coffee grounds/tea leaves look like a ring and is very close to the handle -the person will get married. It doesn’t mean they will get married over and over to different people if you keep seeing the ring. What surrounds the ring will tell you the circumstances around this pending marriage. This is where it gets tricky.

If there is a symbol of a long road from the ring (typically a trip, honeymoon) and the end of the road is blocked or filled in, then the person’s plans to go on this trip related to the wedding, or honeymoon is closed to the person getting the cup read.

The reason I know this to be a fact is because when the Greek lady read my coffee grounds saw a long road inside the cup being blocked. She told me there is a long trip ahead of me but I won’t be able to go. It made no sense to me and I told her that. I had no plans to go on any long distant trip. I did not see travel in my own cards, either.

Well about 6 months or so later there was a long trip. My husband of that time had to fly to Europe to his father’s funeral. I could not go – I was with pregnant with my son.

I think that there are many gifted people out there that are true psychics and could probably read anything & be fairly accurate. However, sometimes information does come in fuzzy- and the frequency is distorted thus the delivery of the information is not accurate. Interpretation is important, experience interpreting symbols is vital- guessing is not appropriate when you don’t know. Just say so- and be honest.

I read somewhere that Lenormand used to walk out of readings when she got stumped and told the person to come back after lunch. Sometimes her readings took 4 hours to complete. She could not produce on demand either, but in those days people would gladly wait because of her reputation. There was a certain “classiness” to those that practised cartomancy (with the exception of the Middle ages of course). I think that some of that respect is slipping away, through media bashing.
The familiar symbols on the Lenormand and other similar decks are found in coffee grounds/ tea leaves readings as well. If you know your cards- you can practice Tasseography with some success, too-