My First Tea Leaf Reading

Last summer, I looked up how to do tea leaf readings on several websites. I printed out instructions and interpretations, and pasted them into a notebook. Last summer, I tried one reading, rather unsuccessfully, with my maid and me together. We didn't have much luck in making out any pictures or symbols in the tea leaves.

Yesterday, I tried again on my own. The instructions say that the kind of cup you use is important. It should not be a straight mug. It should be smaller at the bottom, and larger at the top. My grandmother's cups are the only ones I have that fit these criteria. I looked for cups in Marjane (our local supermarket chain) last week, but only found straight-sided mugs.

The instructions said that if you didn't have any loose handy (I didn't), then you could tear open a tea bag and use that. So I tore open a teabag of green tea, and dumped it into one of my grandmother's cups. I stirred it, but a lot of leaves floated on top. I didn't know how I was going to drink the tea. My first thought was I will have to ask my British friends how to make a proper cup of tea next time I see them! After a minute, I tried stirring again, and then again. Finally, fewer leaves were floating on top.

You are supposed to clear your mind, as when meditating. Concentrate on your breathing as you clear your mind. I also imagined an empty green chalkboard in front of my face. If any question persistently pops into your mind, that is the subject of the reading. If nothing pops into your mind, then it is just a general reading. When nothing in particular came to mind, I decided mine was a general reading.

I sipped my tea over about ten minutes. When you get down to the last little bit, you are supposed to swish the cup around in a circle three times, clockwise. This distributes the leaves around the sides of the cup. Then, you are supposed to carefully invert the cup onto a saucer, so that the rest of the liquid slowly drains out.

What I didn't understand last year was that the interpretation is a bit like taking the Rorschach Ink Blot Test. So this time, I took my time. You kind of have to gaze at things and sometimes turn them sideways and upside down. Then, usually some symbol, letter, or picture will appear in the clump. You should start reading with the handle at 12:00 position, and continue in a clockwise direction, up around the rim, which represents the near future. The middle horizontal band of the cup represents the near future, usually not more than two weeks away. The bottom of the cup represents some time further out in the future.

My next problem, which was not addressed on any of the websites, was how to keep a record of what you see. Last year, I attempted to draw a circle, representing the cup, with a handle up at 12:00 position. This time, I decided to draw three horizontal rectangular boxes across the page, each representing the three bands of the cup. Then I could note the position in the cup by references to places on the clock above each box.

So, I spent 20 minutes interpreting and noting down things in my cup, as well as sketching the pictures I saw, and the locations I found them in the cup. Then my husband came home, and I was interrupted. I set the cup aside to continue later, but that evening found it all dried out. The tea leaves were still stuck to the sides of the cup, but they were shrunk, and not easy to look at, like before. So I learned that one must not let the tea leaves dry out. I only got about half of the cup done before I was interrupted, so next time I'll allow more uninterrupted time, as it took a lot longer than I expected. I took my notebook with me, and worked on interpretations as I had time. I drew my pictures and named what they were in one color of ink, and wrote my interpretations (from my lists) in another color of ink. So, my notebook looks something like this (except that it has drawings, which I don't yet know how to insert into the text boxes, and my interpretation notes in a different color by each note and drawing):

I attempted to draw pictures of these boxes to post in my blog, but they just didn't come out correctly on the page, so I'm afraid I can't include them. Maybe later in the year I can post a photo of my tea leaves blog.

Margot