Tag Archives: coffee

Greek Fortune-Telling Coffee

TEXT:

I have a Greek friend whose family still practices lots of older Greek folk traditions. One of these is Greek coffee cup fortune telling, practiced specifically by his grandma. She has her subject drink a cup of Greek coffee, which leaves lots of residue in the cup after it’s drunk. Then, she flips the mug on its side, spins it three times clockwise, and then lets it dry on the side of a plate for a little. She would pick out certain shapes or patterns from the way the coffee residue stained the cup and use them to draw conclusions about her subject’s life. They’re usually scarily accurate, and predict specific things like falling in love, losing a loved one, or making successful decisions at work.

CONTEXT:

My friend witnesses this often at family gatherings. It doesn’t take long to perform and his grandma is an expert. He, however, does not really believe in the fortune telling, most likely because it doesn’t always pan out. He remembers one time where she told an uncle that she saw a rat for him, which meant that someone near him would die soon. The uncle was shocked, but my friend acknowledges that she could’ve been messing with him since he’s one of the only non-Greeks in the family (married in). Nothing bad ever happened to the uncle. My friend’s mother, on the other hand, does believe in the fortune telling along with some other traditional Greek superstitions. His grandma has taught his mother a few things about the process in hopes that one day she might be able to do it herself.

MY ANALYSIS:

The tradition is common to some others from around the world, like Chinese tea leaf readings. These types  I read online that that’s where it might have originated from. The coffee cup readings stem from a belief that there’s something in your being that becomes translated into the way you drink your cup of coffee that can reveal your fortune. I think the original purpose of the tradition was to provide hope in times of crisis and to have a way to be prepared for the possibly unpredictable future. Now, however, the tradition seems outdated and not that many Greek people believe in it. This could be a trait of the large Greek diaspora that lives outside of the homeland. It could also be a symptom of the times – science has progressed so far and we have so much faith in it that it seems impossible that something could tell our fortunes through just coffee grounds. The tradition functions as mere entertainment for the most part, now, and as a way to bond Greek families.

Stocking Up On Coffee

Text:
Every Christmas, the informant’s mom will fill his stocking up with snacks and food, and always some canned coldbrew coffee that she left in the fridge overnight, then put in his stocking early that morning.

Context:
The informant and his mom are both foodies, so this is something they can bond over. He specifically really likes coffee, especially cold brew, but it can take some time to make, and is usually harder to find or get. Having it in his stocking that morning is also a practical convenience because if he wants coffee, they don’t need to spend a lot of time making it or finding a cafe that is open and has it.

Analysis:
This is something that I would consider more to be the start of folklore if it continues than full fledged folklore at the moment, but I felt it was too cool and sweet of a thing not to include in my posts. It’s a cool way to celebrate your loved ones by giving them a gift that fits their interests, and doing anything consistently makes it even more special, as it becomes something that can be relied on, which is comforting.

Cafecito

 MR is a student at Carleton University but currently lives in Texas with her family. Her parents are both Mexican immigrants and she was born in Canada, but they have all lived in the United States for over a decade. She is a linguist who speaks multiple languages. 

TEXT: ‘cafecito’

MR- It’s used when, like, you’re done with a meal and now it’s time for talking at the table. Maybe you have a cookie or like a little dessert or like a little cup of coffee or tea and you just table talk. You have cafecito to have table talk. Cafecito is commonly used by Spanish-speaking people because it’s just a diminutive of cafe (coffee), but me and my family and friends use it a lot more frequently and more versatile. My non-Spanish speaking friends know what it means when I ask for them to come over for a quick cafecito. 

ANALYSIS: The progression of cafecito as a phrase represents the values of MR and her bilingual family. Dinner time is an important time for many families, eating all together and not leaving the table until everyone is done. Sharing time together around a meal is crucial to MR’s lifestyle, and the evolution of the use of the word cafecito captures that. While the direct translation of the word just means coffee, when asking for some cafecito there is a desire for communal gathering and conversation, not just a drink. In a world where having a screen in front of your face throughout the whole day is becoming ever more pertinent, it’s important to have moments of true connection and honest conversations, without any added social pressures. Having cafecito after a meal allows for a calm and open area for people to commune and relax, with just good company and treats to keep one occupied. Using the word Cafecito in this way is also very reflexive of the bilingual experience. In many multilingual families, words and phrases quickly take on new or double meanings. The abundance of communication routes does not always mean that there are words that can capture what one means, and often there is a word in one language that better captures the feeling you are trying to convey in another. Cafecito evolved into a multilingual term, having various meanings depending on the sentence in which it is included and able to be used in multiple languages. The varying uses of the word Cafecito all represent the importance of community and communication in our modern world and the ways that language can evolve to fit our needs.

Turkish Coffee Fortune Telling

Background Information: 

The informant is a residential real estate developer who learned a lot of traditions and superstitions from their mother. They currently live in Detroit, Michigan but emigrated from Turkey. 

Main Content: 

ME: So can you tell me a bit about using Turkish Coffee to tell someone’s fortune? 

GD: Yeah so, um, after you drink your Turkish coffee, in your Turkish coffee cup, its a small cup, maybe about like 5 mL ish, you turn it upside down and once the bottom is cool to the touch, um, you turn it right-side up, and there are people who claim they can tell your future and your fortune from what they see in the coffee grounds. 

ME: Do you know what they look for in the grounds? 

GD: If they see, like, it really depends on the person’s interpretation, it’s very subjective. But, like, you know, if someone sees something that looks like a mountain, one person will tell you that it looks like there will be a big obstacle in the way, while another person will tell you that it looks like you will be traveling somewhere soon. It’s very subjective, it’s like an art, really.

ME: I’ve seen you do it a number of times before, in cafes in Turkey with your friends, do you believe in it at all, or do you just do it for fun? 

GD: Kaya, some people absolutely believe in it, and they have people they go to regularly to read their fortunes. But if we’re doing it, it’s just for fun. I don’t believe in it, but there are definitely people who believe in it, and there are definitely people who know what they are talking about. 

ME: Do you know how it started, or how you learned about it? 

GD: I have no idea, you would have to look it up. My family is Turkish, and, um, I grew up with my aunts and family friends, that, after they drink their Turkish coffee, they turn their cup upside down and have their fortune read. 

Background: 

This interview happened at my house. 

Thoughts: 

This tradition is very popular in Turkey. The informant is my mother, and I remember seeing her do this countless times with her Turkish friends. However, to them, it was always something that they laughed about and nobody really took it seriously. Upon further research, this is a tradition that has been around for thousands of years and can be referred to as Tasseography. Trying to find the origin of this tradition was very difficult, and I could not find a credible source citing one place where this began. However, some say that this practice did indeed begin in Ottoman Turkey in the 16th century. However, other sources say that this tradition started with reading tea leaves in ancient China, whereas others claim that it first began in Victorian England. Regardless, this is a very old tradition that has a lot of history. To Turkish culture, it is something very old and cherished, and even though some do not take it seriously, most Turkish people take pride in doing this activity, just like the informant. 

Fortune Telling From a Cup of Turkish Coffee

Nationality: Turkish
Age: 24
Occupation: Graduate Student in Computer Science at USC
Residence: 2715 Portland St Los Angeles CA 90007
Performance Date: 4/17/21
Primary Language: English
Language: Turkish

When my friend first read my fortune out of a cooled cup of Turkish coffee, I was told that he saw angels, tigers and trails in my future. He’d been using a Wikipedia article to help him read our fortunes, but he seemed excite to be sharing this experience with me and my other friend, who had never had our fortunes read in this way before.

Turkish coffee is very dense. It’s more like espresso than coffee, and because of this one only consumes a shot-glass or specialized tiny coffee mug. The person drinking Turkish coffee leaves a small layer of coffee grounds in the bottom of the cup and turns the cup over on a saucer to cool. The grounds may slide down the sides of the cup as they cool and solidify, which the reader then uses to tell the drinker’s fortune.

*

“This is very embedded in the Turkish culture. So it’s not something that you learn somewhere else, it’s around you all the time. You know, you grow up with your mom, your grandma, you know, the aunts and the ladies on the balconies, everyone does it. ” The speaker said as we sat in the Nuka Turkish Cafe in Westwood months after that initial reading in our home. He mentioned that shapes in a coffee mug might look like numbers or scenery.

“There are places in Turkey where you would go to visit like an actual medium. Well, those are self-proclaimed mediums. But the interesting thing is, I’ve been to certain mediums that would have incredibly accurate fortunetelling. Like, they will give you a lot of information about your past and your future. And very often, I’ve met people and I have had friends who have these professional medium fortune telling them, like their fortune telling actually becomes true in the future. And so it’s an interesting thing. And I really don’t know that side of it that well. It’s very supernatural. And I just feel like some people actually do have that supernatural talent to be able to use this. “

The speaker added that Turkish mediums also use tarot and palmistry to tell fortunes, and that this tradition is quite old. “The Turkish army that my father is, is a part of has an insignia on it that says before Christ, 200 something. It’s a 2200 years old army.” He added that before Christianity, many Turkish tribes practiced paganism. “

“We have a Turkish idiom that says, “Don’t believe in this fortune telling. But like, don’t live without it… it’s an integral and cultural part of our lives. But we also live in a society where, you know, we are aware that fortune telling is not a very scientific method… So it’s, it’s more of a fun sport at this point than actual people believing in it. It’s more it’s more fun than it’s taken like serious.”

*

The speaker was happy that we had come to visit him in the Nuka Cafe, and he pretended to be annoyed that I was recording his thoughts about fortune telling. When I asked him where he first saw fortune telling, he mentioned that much like a baby doesn’t remember their first steps, he doesn’t remember where he first encountered this tradition. Another friend mentioned that the speaker’s past fortune came true, and later that day he read another cup of Turkish coffee. He told our third friend that he saw a world map and a wedding.

This is important to me because much like the speaker, I enjoy fortune-telling tools but don’t really believe in them… unless something else changes my mind about their accuracy. I first came across the idea of fortune-telling from tea or coffee in the movie Coraline, and I showed the speaker the section of the film that includes fortune-telling after we had done the first reading in the house. I enjoyed having my fortune read and will not believe it while simultaneously “keeping it in mind.”

This seems to be a largely female craft. The speaker is interested in Turkish folklore and could not remember the meanings of symbols he described to us the first time he performed this tradition using Wikipedia notes.