Tea Etiquette: Reading the Leaves

"Floating tea leaves mean 'watch for strangers coming.' To tell the gender and the day of arrival, put them on the back of one hand and tap with the back of the other until they adhere - each tap is one day - and if they are soft leaves it is a woman; if hard, a man." 

The story of tea is as strange and as fascinating as any that one can read. A prehistoric event dating back some five thousand years is bound to be shrouded in many mysteries, but the exceptional qualities of tea are such that many legends developed concerning its beginnings. A highly civilized people like the Chinese considered it a special gift from heaven. In India, too, it was much the same. In Japan a special ceremony grew around it. This habit of drinking tea is the only purely Asian custom which commands universal interest. Through it the East and West have met - in a teacup! 

Its introduction had a charming influence on our Western culture, even though a great deal of smuggling and piracy helped to bring it about. Discriminating Chinese taste insisted that tea should be drunk from porcelain; and this subsequently had a tremendous effect on world trade and the voyages of clipper ships. Art, politics, and religion were all involved.

All this mystery and adventure stirred up many superstitions. Even today some tea companies attach a little saying to each teabag, such as:

"To stir tea in the pot is to stir up strife."

"Floating tea leaves mean 'watch for strangers coming.' To tell the gender and the day of arrival, put them on the back of one hand and tap with the back of the other until they adhere - each tap is one day - and if they are soft leaves it is a woman; if hard, a man." 

Fortune-telling from tea leaves is not solely a gypsy custom. Many people have read meanings into the shapes and groups of leaves that form in the bottom of the cup - how accurately is, of course, another matter. — By Patricia Easterbrook Roberts, 1967

 🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia