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I had to look up Tasseography too, so I will save you the trouble and start off this entry with its definition (according to wikipedia.org):
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Tasseography (also known as tasseomancy or tassology) is a divination or fortune-telling method that interprets patterns in tea leaves, coffee grounds, or wine sediments.
The terms derive from the French word tasse (cup), which in turn derives from the Arabic tassa (cup), and the Greek suffixes -graph, -logy, and -mancy (divination).
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Before I go into what Tasseography has to do with all of this, let me tell you about Turkish coffee. Turkish coffee came to Istanbul in the middle of the 16th century. It quickly grew in popularity. By the mid 17th century, Turkish coffee had become a measure of a woman’s merits. Prospective husbands and their parents would drink coffee prepared by the potential bride as a measure of her house keeping skills. To spoil unwanted marriages, women would use salt instead of sugar, or spill the coffee intentionally. I have read that still today this is used by parents to evaluate potential wives for the sons, but I haven’t seen or heard of it before.
Turkish coffee is made by boiling finely powdered coffee beans in a pot. Without any filtering, this produces somewhat of a muddy mixture that is typically served in a small white cup similar in size to Italian espresso. The coffee has some particulate matter floating in it, but for the most part, all of the coffee power sinks to the bottom like silt in a river bed. Because of the silt at the bottom of the cup, not all of the coffee can be drunk. Coffee used to be very popular in the Ottoman empire. As a consequence, many of the former Ottoman territories drink coffee in this way - the Arabs, Greeks, and many of the Slavs. So important was the coffee in Ottoman culture, the word for breakfast, ‘kahvalt?,’ literally means before coffee. Now, Turkish tea and ‘nescafe’ have taken over as the popular drinks in Turkish culture (To read more about Turkish Coffee click here). Personally, I love Turkish coffee, especially when it is mixed with spices.
After you have finished your Turkish coffee, the cup’s saucer is placed on top of the cup, and together they are turned upside down. It is then left that way until it dries. Some of the dark coffee grinds stick to the white cup and form a pattern of light and dark. It is from this pattern that a fortune teller can tell your fortune. This practice is known as “fal” in Turkish. Last night Berna did my reading and it was quite cool. Most of it was very positive, with a few warnings. I can’t say that I believe in that sort of thing, but it was fun nonetheless.
In Turkish, Turks say, “To drink one cup of coffee together guarantees forty years of friendship”
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