Tasseography, or the divining of 1’s fortune from a cup of espresso or tea or wine even, has been practiced everywhere in the world for hundreds of years. Fortune telling from espresso particularly traces its lineage again a minimum of to the 1500s and the Ottoman Empire. Also called tasseomancy—“tasse” that means cup and “-mancy” that means to divine—the follow is most typical in Arab nations and Asia Minor, significantly Turkey, the place the namesake espresso fashion produces a thick mattress of sediment most conducive to readings.

For practically 600 years, tasseography has been an in-person follow. You drink your espresso, flip it over on the saucer to let the sediments fall in some distinctive vogue, after which hand the cup over to the diviner to learn it. However the twenty first century brings with it twenty first century variations of a lot older traditions, with espresso readings obtainable on-line, through video chats, and even in apps.

In a current video, CNN Journey headed to Istanbul, Turkey the place they interviewed espresso fortune teller Batu Soylu. Soylu does readings at Image Espresso, a series of cafes round Istanbul based again in 2002, all of which do espresso readings. The video exhibits Soylu performing a studying, deciphering shapes and symbols discovered within the espresso grounds—like a cat, a key, and a street—in addition to “the particular person’s face in entrance of [them].”

 

This specific studying was in particular person, however that isn’t the one avenue Soylu and Image supply. Via their web site, of us can schedule to have their fortune learn on-line. For this, they would want to ship in photographs of their espresso cup for Soylu or one other fortune teller to learn and interpret for them on-line and even over the cellphone.

And this isn’t the one instance of a contemporary reimagining of the centuries previous mystical follow. Within the Apple App Retailer, there are at least 10 completely different fortune telling apps that do espresso readings. Some, like Kaave and Faladdin, supply espresso readings as a part of a set of fortune telling choices, together with tarot, palm readings, and beginning charts. Then there are others like Fortune Cup, which focuses soleyl solely tasseography and connects you with fortune tellers from across the globe who will interpret your cup.

There’s even Magic Espresso, a paid app the place you “create” your cup of espresso within the app, utilizing your finger and the contact display screen to swirl the espresso that can then be “learn” by the app. Or you should use Tasseography AI, which is strictly what it seems like. As a result of nothing says conventional mystic follow like [checks note] synthetic intelligence.

So for these in search of a glimpse into their future by means of the lens of their espresso cup however don’t need to e-book a flight to Istanbul, the twenty first century has supplied a bunch of various digital choices. How divine.

Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Community and a employees author primarily based in Dallas. Learn extra Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.