Coffee-ground reading: from Istanbul to the Balkans

Reading the marks left by coffee at the bottom of a small cup is one of the most domestic and convivial forms of divination. Coffee-ground reading has no ancient treatises or sanctuaries behind it, but a long social history tied to the spread of coffee in the Ottoman Empire. To understand it we must start from the drink itself, from the way it was prepared and from the places where it was drunk, from homes to the crowded coffeehouses of the great cities.

Coffee reaches Istanbul

Coffee drinking became established between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Yemen, in Sufi circles that used it to stay awake during night-time prayer vigils. From there it reached Mecca, Cairo and Damascus. According to the Ottoman historian Ibrahim Peçevi, the first coffeehouses in Istanbul were opened around 1554 by two Syrians, Hakam of Aleppo and Shams of Damascus.

Coffeehouses became places of conversation, games and reading, so much so that the authorities closed them several times, fearing that politics was discussed there. Coffee made in the Ottoman manner, boiled with very fine powder and served unfiltered, leaves a dense sediment at the bottom of the cup: the material condition for the birth of coffee-ground reading.

The kahve falı

In Turkish this practice is called kahve falı, «coffee omen». It is not easy to establish when it began: reliable written evidence is relatively late, and oral tradition places its origins, vaguely, in Ottoman domestic life. What is known is that it took place mainly among women, within the family or among neighbours, as part of hospitality.

After drinking, the cup was turned upside down on its saucer and left to cool. The reader observed the shapes left by the sediment on the sides and bottom, recognising animals, roads, letters or human figures, and drew from them a story about the future or the feelings of the person concerned. The tone was often playful, and the social value of the reading mattered as much as the omen.

From the Balkans to the Mediterranean

Along with Ottoman coffee culture, coffee-ground reading spread to Greece, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Armenia, Lebanon and other countries of the eastern Mediterranean. In Greece it is known as kafemanteia. In 2013 UNESCO inscribed «Turkish coffee culture and tradition» on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, highlighting its role in social life.

In Italy and other European regions, too, the expression «reading the coffee grounds» has entered common use, often ironically, to describe a risky prediction. It is a sign that the practice, though it remained marginal, has left a trace in everyday language. In Greece and Cyprus, moreover, reading the cup is still a familiar gesture in many homes, handed down from generation to generation as a small ritual of hospitality.

Coffee-ground reading shows how a form of divination can arise not in temples but in kitchens and sitting rooms. Its true subject is perhaps conversation itself, which around an upturned cup weaves together memory, desire and imagination. To study it is to look closely at the daily life of Ottoman women and their heirs.