Reading the Leaves

A strong tradition lies in the art of reading tea leaves. This is one time when removing the tea leaves in the cup is not required. Once the tea is consumed the cup is turned over in the saucer, rotated 3 times, and turned back up. The reader carefully examines the patterns and positions of the leaves and begins the reading.

There is a great shop in New Orleans on Chartres Street called Bottom of the Cup. Not only do they carry a wide-range of loose-leaf teas they also have experienced tea leaf readers! The business has been in the same family for 3 generations. The present owner's grandmother had the gift but in New Orleans at that time it was unseemly for ladies of wealth and standing to have their fortunes told. The tea room opened as a legitimate business in 1929. Louisiana is known for "Lagniappe." Loosely translated it means a little something extra. Ladies who frequented the tea room were treated to lovely tea with a healthy serving of lagniappe.

Even though I am pretty good at decanting the tea leaves every now and then one will escape into the pot and find its way into the bottom of my tea cup. While I don't claim to be able to read tea leaves I took this as an unmistakable sign of what today might bring:

I promise I did not arrange this. It was just rather amusing and I had to share. I will post more about reading tea leaves and that tradition but I just had to get this happy image up for everyone to see!

If you are in New Orleans make plans to visit Bottom of The Cup http://www.bottomofthecup.com/