Turkish coffee cup
Reading the grounds is a beloved after-coffee ritual from Istanbul to Athens to Beirut. Turkish coffee works perfectly because it is brewed without a filter, so a thick layer of grounds stays in the cup and dries into shapes.
You will need
- Turkish coffee, ground as fine as powder (Greek coffee works too)
- A cezve (a small long-handled pot) or the smallest saucepan you own
- A small cup with a handle and a matching saucer, plain inside if you can
- Cold water, plus sugar if you like it sweet (it goes in before brewing)
Prepare the cup
- Brew it. Stir one heaping teaspoon of coffee, and sugar if you want it, into one small cup of cold water in the pot. Heat it slowly without stirring. When the foam rises toward the rim, pour it into the cup.
- Let it settle. Wait a minute so the grounds sink. Then sip slowly from one side of the cup while you hold your question or wish in mind.
- Stop at the sludge. When you reach the thick layer at the bottom, stop drinking. Leave about a spoonful of coffee with the grounds.
- Cover and make a wish. Set the saucer on top of the cup like a lid. This is the moment to make your wish or say your question to yourself.
- Flip it. Holding cup and saucer together, swirl gently, then turn them over in one smooth move so the cup sits upside down on the saucer. Many people turn it away from themselves. Some families set a coin or a ring on top while it cools.
- Wait for it to cool. Give it 5 to 10 minutes, until the bottom of the cup feels cool to the touch. The grounds dry and run into patterns.
- Lift and look. Lift the cup and turn it upright with the handle toward you. If the cup sticks to the saucer, many Turkish readers say your wish has been heard.
Read it
- Start at the handle. The handle stands for you. Read around the cup starting there, then work from the rim down to the bottom.
- Look for shapes, not perfect pictures. Squint and turn the cup slowly. A blob with two points might be a bird, a curl might be a snake. Your first impression counts most.
- Notice where each shape sits. Near the rim is the next few days, the sides are the coming weeks and the bottom is further off. Shapes by the handle are about home.
- Read the saucer last. The grounds that ran onto the saucer speak to your wish. Clear, light patterns there are read as a good sign for it.
Tips
- Tradition says a friend reads your cup and you never read your own. Feel free to break that rule here, or read for each other.
- Keep to one cup per question. Asking the same thing again tends to muddy the answer.
- Snap a photo before the grounds dry out, so you can come back to the shapes later.
- Drip coffee from a paper filter leaves almost no grounds. You need unfiltered coffee, like Turkish or Greek coffee.