The best kind of tea to use if tea-cup reading is to be followed is undoubtedly China tea

, the original tea imported into this country and still the best for all purposes. Indian tea and the
cheaper mixtures contain so much dust and so many fragments of twigs and stems as often to be
quite useless for the purposes of divination, as they will not combine to form pictures, or symbols
clearly to be discerned.

The best shape of cup to employ is one with a wide opening at the top and a bottom not too small.
Cups with almost perpendicular sides are very difficult to read, as the symbols cannot be seen
properly, and the same may be said of small cups. A plain-surfaced breakfast-cup is perhaps the best
to use; and the interior should be white and have no pattern printed upon it, as this confuses the
clearness of the picture presented by the leaves, as does any fluting or eccentricity of shape.

The ritual to be observed is very simple. The tea-drinker should drink the contents of his or her cup
so as to leave only about half a teaspoonful of the beverage remaining. He should next take the cup
by the handle in his left hand, rim upwards, and turn it three times from left to right in one fairly
rapid swinging movement. He should then very slowly and carefully invert it over the saucer and
leave it there for a minute, so as to permit of all moisture draining away.

If he approaches the oracle at all seriously he should du