Ancient Chinese tea drinkers began to analyze and interpret the shapes and positioning of the tea leaf remnants in the bottom of their tea cups and noticed something remarkable. Reading tea leaves became a method of divination. In the 1600s, tea became an import throughout Europe, and the practice of foretelling one’s future from tea leaves was carried across the sea and into other expanding continents. 

Because of the large number of effects that tea has on the body, tea drinking is regarded as a unique and individual experience. There seems to be a tea that can help with any illness. With so many different combinations, flavors and blends, tea can be made specifically for what someone is seeking—either an enjoyable beverage, a mixture to combat illness and disease, to calm the troubled mind and spirit or to create a metaphysical drink that transcends time and place. 

Some believe that because of the individual experience and personal connection to the tea, the drinker influences the movement and ultimate placement and pattern of the leaves. The palette of leaves answers questions about the past, present and future of the person who drank the tea. Many who participate in the process, either reading or receiving messages, believe that it is the psychic modality, psychometry. This ability allows a person to receive psychic messages from inanimate objects.

Reading tea leaves, however, involves reading an object which was once animate. The leaves were alive at one point and came from a plant that was very much alive as well. The energy that flows through every living body is interconnected. This connection allows for ethereal knowledge and communication with other planes of existence.

Tea is multipurpose. From beautiful flowers, plants, herbs, bark and roots comes a mystical sensation—tea. Used as the beverage of choice, medical remedy or to foretell the future, tea is known and used the world over, and will continue to reveal its magic to anyone willing to take a sip.