What is Tea Ching???

What is Tea Ching??

It's not called Tea Ching, I just made that up.  It's called Tasseography or Tasseomancy and it's the ancient art of divination using tea leaves

Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage.  ~Catherine Douzel

I love tea.  Every day I have a cuppa.  In the summer it's iced and delicious, a squeeze of lemon if there is any or a drop or two of sweetener should it be a little strong. In the cool days of fall and winter it's steamy and hot. Maybe a glug of cream in a bitter blend but sweetener is never invited into a winter cup of warming brew.  

Canadian by birth I've grown up with hot tea and yes, I do know how to make a proper cup of tea, trumped only by dear Britians who have the highest standards for tea making in the entire world! (IMHO)

So it seems only logical that reading tea leaves would become one of my first experiences with divination tools.  Tea bags can be opened and some leaves emptied into a cup, swirled, dumped and what's left becomes a story to be told.  My brother and I would sit after breakfast, watching cartoons and relaying the images seen in our cups.  We didn't see them as prophetic messages from beyond, we just enjoyed the game.  Telling silly stories and laughing at the sometimes naughty formations lining our cups. 

As I got older I continued to tell stories with my tea leaves.  After reading a book on dream interpretation I began to connect the dots.  Could the pictures in my cup actually have meaning?  I purchased a dream dictionary and looked up the pictures to see if they perhaps had some higher meaning, somewhat like dreaming, it became a way to sort through the craziness of my days.  

Years later I would attend a Halloween office party where a co-worker, dressed in a kitschy gypsy costume, sat and read fortunes from tea leaves!  'Helen! I didn't know you read tea leaves!' there was no indication that Helen was the least bit magical and I found her readings illuminating.  Within the next few weeks I found myself heading to Helen's office on some errand or another with a quick question or two about how she reads tea leaves.  Though my readings have evolved since then I still use many of Helen's methods today.

Tasseography or Tasseomancy is truly an ancient divination art.  In a nut shell, it's skrying.  Interpreting symbols and pictures in something, could be anything, to foretell the future. 

It can be as easy or as complicated as you want to make it.  Interested? Want to find out how you can read tea leaves? I'll be sharing more on this ancient and facinating art.

Interested?  Leave me a comment.