Tea leaf reading

In England and Scotland, tea is not finished — it is read. The custom is centuries old and even has a scholarly name, tasseomancy, but in kitchens it was always called something simpler: seeing what the leaves say. You drain the cup, turn it three times on the saucer and look at where the strands have clung.

The trick of tea — and what sets it apart from our coffee grounds — is the handle. In coffee, the heights rule: rim, wall and bottom are three tenses. In tea, it is the cup\'s geography that rules: what falls by the handle is yours and your household\'s; what lies opposite comes from outside; to the right of the handle sits what is arriving, and to the left, what is leaving. The same leaf does not say the same thing on either shore.

The symbols are different too: the British canon — the teapot of counsel, the bee of work, the lighthouse that warns, the magpie that hides, the initial that names someone. Here three leaves fall per cup, each in its zone, and the oracle points to the weightiest; the other two are read with a tap.

Is it science? No — and proudly so: it is the British five o\'clock, the grandmother peering into your cup with her glasses on the tip of her nose. Take it exactly that way — a pause, a cup and a story — and may your leaves fall kindly.