The historical craze for reading tea-leaves

Post Reply
User avatar
mbanu
Posts: 962
Joined: Fri May 03, 2019 3:45 pm

Sun Feb 20, 2022 12:04 pm

makeawish.jpg
makeawish.jpg (435.79 KiB) Viewed 3321 times

Not sure if this is the right section, but thought it deserved a thread. In the U.S., at least, these practices and the places built around them (such as the "gypsy" tearooms) created their own tea subculture that rose and fell in popularity along with horoscopes. Maybe I don't travel in the right circles, but I think they mostly faded away here around the time "What's your sign?" stopped being a good conversation-starter, but can sometimes help explain little oddities about tea-culture, like why Bigelow would change their "Chinese Tea" blend to "Chinese Fortune Tea". :) A few such places are still around today, such as the Tremont Tearoom in Boston, but I don't think these places are big influencers anymore -- in the past, tea companies would sometimes publish booklets on how to read tea-leaves in hopes of selling more tea, certainly not something they do anymore. :D
User avatar
mbanu
Posts: 962
Joined: Fri May 03, 2019 3:45 pm

Mon Feb 21, 2022 1:23 am

phoebe-leafreading.jpg
phoebe-leafreading.jpg (565.41 KiB) Viewed 3281 times

I think it has had more persistence in popular culture. For instance, there was an episode of the American sitcom Friends devoted to tea-leaf reading in 2002, "The One With The Tea Leaves".

zhenas.jpg
zhenas.jpg (593.45 KiB) Viewed 3281 times

Also, a fairly successful spiced-tea company ran from 2000 to 2017 called "Zhena's Gypsy Tea", although in their case I think it had less to do with fortune-telling and more to do with the term "gypsy" being seen in some American circles as slang for a free-spirited woman rather than as an ethnic slur as it is often seen elsewhere.



I think the practice also received a brief boost from being a plot point in a Harry Potter book and its film adaption in 2004, where it was called "tessomancy". :)
User avatar
mbanu
Posts: 962
Joined: Fri May 03, 2019 3:45 pm

Mon Feb 21, 2022 2:32 am

mbanu wrote:
Sun Feb 20, 2022 12:04 pm
in the past, tea companies would sometimes publish booklets on how to read tea-leaves in hopes of selling more tea, certainly not something they do anymore. :D
salada-cupreading.jpg
salada-cupreading.jpg (890.53 KiB) Viewed 3273 times

An example from Salada.

lipton1935.jpg
lipton1935.jpg (797.92 KiB) Viewed 3273 times

A competing booklet the following year from Lipton.

1937tea-market-expansion-bureau.jpg
1937tea-market-expansion-bureau.jpg (557.17 KiB) Viewed 3271 times

The trade agencies getting involved a few years after that, with a booklet from the Tea Market Expansion Bureau. :)
User avatar
mbanu
Posts: 962
Joined: Fri May 03, 2019 3:45 pm

Mon Feb 21, 2022 3:44 am

mbanu wrote:
Sun Feb 20, 2022 12:04 pm
these practices and the places built around them (such as the "gypsy" tearooms) created their own tea subculture that rose and fell in popularity along with horoscopes.
bottom-of-the-cup-1941.jpg
bottom-of-the-cup-1941.jpg (620.22 KiB) Viewed 3260 times

An example from 1941. I don't think this is Bottom of the Cup in New Orleans, as the photo is from New York, but it is only dated, not labeled with a location.

However, not all "gypsy tearooms" were actually tearooms -- in some places they were nightclubs. I think this was due to the popularity of the 1935 dance song, "In a Little Gypsy Tea Room", which was inspired by the craze.

new-gypsy-tearoom-1941.jpg
new-gypsy-tearoom-1941.jpg (607.92 KiB) Viewed 3268 times

For example, The New Gypsy Tea Room, one of those clubs in 1941 New Orleans.
User avatar
mbanu
Posts: 962
Joined: Fri May 03, 2019 3:45 pm

Mon Feb 21, 2022 5:17 am

mbanu wrote:
Mon Feb 21, 2022 3:44 am
Image


An example from 1941. I don't think this is Bottom of the Cup in New Orleans, as the photo is from New York, but it is only dated, not labeled with a location.


I will say, though, that a fairly unique slice of American tea-culture is when a news reporter went to see a tealeaf-reader at Bottom of the Cup in 2010 to see if the New Orleans Saints would win the Super Bowl. :D
User avatar
mbanu
Posts: 962
Joined: Fri May 03, 2019 3:45 pm

Mon Feb 21, 2022 7:57 am

parker51.jpeg
parker51.jpeg (460.92 KiB) Viewed 3230 times

By 1953, the practice was apparently considered mainstream enough to be used to advertise unrelated things, such as Parker "51" fountain pens.
User avatar
mbanu
Posts: 962
Joined: Fri May 03, 2019 3:45 pm

Mon Feb 21, 2022 8:22 am

mbanu wrote:
Mon Feb 21, 2022 3:44 am
However, not all "gypsy tearooms" were actually tearooms -- in some places they were nightclubs. I think this was due to the popularity of the 1935 dance song, "In a Little Gypsy Tea Room", which was inspired by the craze.


Image


For example, The New Gypsy Tea Room, one of those clubs in 1941 New Orleans.
life1943.jpeg
life1943.jpeg (467.49 KiB) Viewed 3226 times

On the other hand, they may have offered other types of fortune-telling as their patrons drank other things. According to a 1943 article in LIFE magazine, this was a popular type of bar-trick during the war years.
User avatar
mbanu
Posts: 962
Joined: Fri May 03, 2019 3:45 pm

Mon Feb 21, 2022 9:15 am

mbanu wrote:
Mon Feb 21, 2022 7:57 am
Image


By 1953, the practice was apparently considered mainstream enough to be used to advertise unrelated things, such as Parker "51" fountain pens.
I think this might have been around the start of a decline in interest, however, simply due to the fact that as the 1950s progressed, the sort of tea that the average American would encounter would always have been in a teabag, unless they specifically made the effort to search for loose-leaf tea.

By 1972, Elinor Horowitz remarked on this in a book on general fortune-telling, "Americans today have become so accustomed to the use of tea bags — and the idea that tea leaves must at any cost be kept out of the cup — that tea leaf reading is not nearly so popular as it used to be." By then, it was known as an English pastime, although I'm not sure that was really true. In 1971, 51% of the tea sold in America was in teabags and 38% was instant tea, with only 11% loose. In 1950, loose tea had a 59% share of the U.S. tea market.

fortune-teacup.jpg
fortune-teacup.jpg (437.03 KiB) Viewed 3209 times

One possible reason for the England connection (other than the general availability of loose-leaf over there in the 1970s), is that English stoneware manufacturers were selling Zodiac gift-set teaware in the U.S., like the Taltos Fortune-Telling Teacup, to try to take advantage of the general popularity of astrology in America during the late 1960s/early 1970s.

taltos.jpg
taltos.jpg (966.27 KiB) Viewed 3207 times

I imagine that this would have been the sort of situation that lead to the Bigelow re-branding. :D Trying to maintain their existing drinkers from the early 60s who were looking for a tea to accompany their home-cooked American-Chinese food, while also attracting young people looking for a loose-leaf tea to perform teacup reading.

Image

Although Bigelow kept the name, for most of the 1980s any references to "reading the tea leaves" were metaphorical. Even though an interest in loose-leaf was starting to develop again in the U.S. due to folks like James Norwood Pratt and his circle, in 1989 63% of the tea sold in America was in teabags and 34% was instant tea, with only 3% loose, while many of the original holdouts like the UK had switched over to teabags as well. (The Zodiac fad had fizzled out by then.)
Post Reply