The materials needed to read the leaves are easily attainable. Tea, of course, is the primary tool here. China tea or black tea gives the best results and the clearest designs, although any variety can be used–even the grounds from Turkish coffee have been read on occasion. The tea should be brewed loose (don’t put it in bags or tea balls!) in a teapot without a strainer. After it is done brewing, it should be poured into a teacup that is smaller at the base than at the top–avoid mugs whose sides are perpendicular to their bases. Larger cups are preferable to smaller cups when it comes to reading the leaves, as there is more room for the patterns to form. You will also need a saucer and any flavorings you like. After all, you, or the subject of the reading (the querent) is going to have to drink the tea. Purists might disagree, but I have never seen a reading’s results harmed by the addition of lemon, milk, or honey.

After the subject of the reading drinks the tea, being sure to leave about a sip or two at the bottom of the cup, he or she should take the cup by the handle and turn it three times clockwise. While turning it, he or she should make sure that the remains of the tea flow up the sides of the cup. This ensures that the tea leaves get distributed around the cup. This done, the cup should be inverted completely on the saucer.

You are now ready to begin the divination. You are going to interpret the patterns/pictures made by the tea leaves around the cup. Decipher them as you would when looking for pictures in the clouds (which is actually a form of divination in itself). The pictures are usually interpreted in terms of widely-accepted magickal symbolism. Listing them is beyond the scope of this article. For good coverage of symbols and their meanings, I highly recommend The Complete Book of Fortune Telling by J.L. Smythe, which dedicates about sixty pages to tasseography and The Complete Book of Spells, Ceremonies, and Magick by Migene Gonzalez-Wippler, which gives excellent general symbolic meanings in the chapter on dream interpretation.

Here is a very brief and general lists of patterns common in readings:

acorn, amulet, anchor, angel, ark, basket, bee, bell, birds, boot, bouquet, boat, bottle, bridge, broom, bull, car, candle, casttle, chair, church, circle, clover, corn, cornucopia, cow, crown, cup, dog, eagle, elephant, fig, fish, garland, hand, harp, heart, horseshoe, house, key, ladder, man, palm tree, rose, ship, tree, umbrella, wheel, windmill

arc, arrow, bars, bats, bones, bullets, butterfly, clock, coffin, cross, dagger, drum, fan, flag, hourglass, knife, monkey, mouse, mushroom, needlem owl, pins, rat, scissors, scythe, skeleton, skull, snake, square, stormclouds, sword, tomb, tombstone, wreck

In addition, if you are familiar with the runes and you see any in the leaves, you may wish to interpret them accordingly. Numbers can indicate days, weeks, hours, etc. Letters may be the initials of a person or place that will play a role in the querent’s life. Rarely, whole words can be seen in the leaves.

Symbols which are very clearly delineated tend to deal with things that are more likely to come to pass, or will have more of an impact on the querent, than more blurry symbols.

Of course, you should never tie yourself down to any particular set of meanings. Instead, trust your intuition and go by how something feels, which can be very different from what such-and-such a book says. By the same token, most readers develop their own meanings through time and experience. If the book says, for example, that flowers symbolize love and fertility, but the querent is terribly allergic to flowers, this factor (that is, the person’s allergy) can greatly affect the symbol’s meaning in his or her life. Use the generally-accepted meanings as a guide only. Also, if you follow any particular pagan religion or magickal system, you may wish to base your interpretations of the leaves on any special symbolism your path uses.

In order to discern the time frame in which events will unfold, go by this guide: The top of the cup represents the near future. As you get closer to the bottom of the cup you are going into the more distant future. The handle of the cup represents the querent, so any symbols near it represent events which will effect him more greatly that events foretold on the opposite side of the cup.

As with any form of divination, the events predicted in a tea-leaf reading are only what will happen if the querent stays on the path that he or she is currently on. The results of the reading can be changed, for better or worse, by the querent’s actions. When it comes to the future, very little is completely unchangeable.

Happy reading!