Gift Lab: It’s Written in the Tea

Research
I was always attracted to the world of mysticism and fortune-telling. I’ve had my Turkish Coffee Cup read and it was the most accurate “psychic reading” I’ve ever had— and I’ve had quite a few. The second I saw the Tea Leaf Reading Kit, I had to have it… immediately.

Hypothesis
With the help of the instructions, I will be able to read the futures of my friends and co-workers.

Experiment
The first step is finding a few victims test subjects. I found myself eyeing up friends and co-workers and wondering if they would think I was crazy or play along. Luckily for me, I found some who would!

Meet Lauren and Seneca, my two favorite Uncommon sisters.

Okay, so maybe they thought I was crazy, but they were willing to play along, which is really all that matters.

The kit comes with a mug, tea leaves, instructions and a symbol dictionary. All we needed to add was a spoon, some napkins, boiling water and somewhere to pour the excess liquid. It’s safer to use a bowl or a sink, as the instructions recommend. We used a cup. Don’t do this! We might have made a bit of a mess…

First up was Lauren.

We put in a half teaspoon of the tea leaves and just enough water to cover them.

The person who is getting their tea leaves read must then put their hand on top of the cup to infuse the leaves with their energy, making sure to focus on what they would like to know. Lauren did this while focusing on her future.

After a minute or two, that person then holds the handle of the mug, swirling it three times to pour out the excess water and line the sides of the cup with the tea leaves. This was the messy part! A piece of advice: have a nice amount of napkins readily available to you. You will need them.

Once the water is almost all poured out, flip the cup upside down on a napkin or paper towel for a few seconds. Then, spin the cup three times to seal the leaves into place, turn over, and start reading!

As you can see, all of Lauren’s leaves decided to band together to form one big animal. In person, this looked more like an owl. Here, however, it seems to be a cat.

Since at that point we saw an owl, we went with that description.

It looks like Lauren’s future is full of wisdom and reflection. I wasn’t entirely sure how to turn those two words into a cheesy reading speech, so I went with one sentence: “You will soon gain insight and wisdom from reflecting on your life and choices so far.”

Seems legit.

Seneca’s turn!

Seneca had quite a few shapes going on in there. It was pretty difficult to decipher them, but I found some winners. I didn’t take pictures because you would all think I was crazy and imagining them.

Don’t judge me.

After deciphering four different shapes, Seneca’s fortune turned out to be pretty promising: “You will receive some new, positive information that will result in a journey with a faithful companion.”

We took that as “Some really great news is coming that will send you and your guy on an adventure down a new path in life.”

Conclusion

This item is just as awesome as I expected it to be. Cheesy mysticism aside, the two “readings” seemed to coincide with their current life-events. Okay, so it could just be the Forer Effect. Please don’t ruin my moment.

Yay for the Tea Leaf Reading Kit and its fortune-telling abilities!