Tasseography, or fortune telling from a cup of coffee, tea, or even wine, has been practiced around the world for centuries. Coffee fortune telling comes from its origins at least until the 1500s and the Ottoman EmpireAlso known as tasseomancy—“tasse” meaning cup, and “-mancy” meaning to divine—the practice is most common in Arab countries and Asia Minor, particularly Turkey, where the style of coffee-making from which its name is derived produces a broad layer of sediment that is most conducive to readings.
For nearly 600 years, tasseography has been a personal practice. You drink your coffee, swirl it on a saucer to make the sediment settle in some special way, and then hand the cup to a fortune teller to read it. But the 21st century is bringing with it 21st-century versions of much older traditions, with coffee readings available online, via video chats, and even on apps.
In a recent video, CNN Travel traveled to Istanbul, Turkey, where they interviewed coffee fortune teller Batu Soylu. Soylu reads in Coffee symbola chain of coffee shops around Istanbul founded in 2002 that host coffee readings. The video shows Soylu reading, interpreting shapes and symbols found in coffee grounds — such as a cat, a key, and a road — as well as “the face of the person in front of [them].”
This particular reading was in person, but that’s not the only way Soylu and Symbol offer it. Through their website, people can schedule their reading online. To do this, they would need to send in pictures of their coffee cup for Soylu or another psychic to read and interpret for them online or even over the phone.
And that’s not the only example of a newfangled twist on an age-old mystical practice. There are no fewer than 10 different fortune-telling apps in the Apple App Store that perform coffee readings. Some, like Kaave and Faladdin, offer coffee readings as part of a suite of fortune-telling options, along with tarot, palm readings, and birth charts. There are others, like Fortune Cup, which focuses solely on tasseography and connects you with fortune-tellers from around the world who will interpret your cup.
There’s even Magic Coffee, a paid app where you “create” your own cup of coffee in the app by using your finger and touchscreen to swirl the coffee, which is then “read” by the app. Or you can utilize Tasseography AI, which is exactly what it sounds like. Because nothing says conventional mystical practice like [checks note] artificial intelligence.
So for those looking to get a glimpse of their future through a cup of coffee but don’t want to book a flight to Istanbul, the 21st century has provided a wealth of digital options. How divine.
