Coffee Talk
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The droopy attendance at the games has caught Athens off guard. Shops find themselves overloaded with unsold Olympic tchochkes and ticket scalpers are having a rough time striking deals. There was a more optimistic era, dating back three weeks, when attempting to book a hotel room was a competitive sport unto itself. Some reservation desks said they had been booked solid since 2002, while other establishments cranked up their usually modest fees to $1,000 a night.
Finding a private residence seemed a reasonable solution. I’ve been staying with Tuleh and Angelo, a kindhearted couple in their 60s. They live in a fourth-floor apartment in a tranquil section of the city. It’s especially peaceful at night when we’re all in bed and the only sound is the soothing rumble of the trains across the road.
It’s a bit noisier in the day. My Greek consists of “thank you,” “good afternoon,” and “tzatziki.” Angelo and Tuleh have a slightly better grasp of English, but just barely. We all speak at unconscionably loud volumes, as if loudness is going to help matters.
It doesn’t. I have yet to really understand anything that they’re telling me, except that they don’t think I eat enough, which they have managed to communicate by accompanying their yelling with flinging open the refrigerator door and gesturung at its contents in a feverish manner.
If I indicate I am not in the mood to eat whatever is being pointed at, their faces crumple tragically. When I do nibble on something, Tuleh celebrates by preparing me a small cup of Greek coffee, a deliciously sugary drink that’s the consistency of runny mud.
It’s a mistake to drink the entire cup’s worth; the finely ground coffee settles at the bottom of the cup, where it eventually dries into a miniature mud cake. As I started to carry my cup to the sink the other day, Tuleh snatched it from me, twirled the cup around several times before setting it upside down on its saucer.
A few minutes later she picked it up again and intensely studied its inside, and then reached for the words, “Door… Three times…Good luck…Friend…See you…Maybe boy…Yes.” Her difficulty speaking to me seemed to frustrate her more than usual.
I just smiled encouragingly, unsure of what meaning to divine from her message. When I mentioned it to my Greek friend Fotini, a bright smile broke across her face and she explained Tuleh had been telling me my fortune.
Flitzani, or “cup-reading,” is a mystical Greek art of reading people’s fortunes in the pattern their coffee grinds make in their empty cups. The tradition is passed down from one generation to the next, and the numbers of its practitioners have been dwindling.
The skill can’t simply be learned from a flitzano (“cup woman”), but the student must also possess the mystical power to intuit the messages before her eyes.
The practice came to Greece during the Ottoman occupation, and traces back to the tea leaf reading of ancient China. The coffee must be prepared in the traditional long-handled briki, and served in a small bell-shaped cup, which is turned upside down once the drinker is finished.
Reading a cup is a bit like searching cloud formations for recognizable shapes. Cup readers see symbols like birds, doors, bears, and trees, each of which has its own significance. The shapes at the base of the cup are meant to be about your relationship with others, while the bottom half is your present and the top is your future.
It also matters whether the rinds settle in clear or fuzzy shapes, because that tells the emotional component of the fortune. When your fortune is about to be told you can’t knock back the coffee. You must drink it slowly, contemplating your questions and worries.
The next time Fotini came over to visit, I asked her to explain what Tuleh could see in my cup.
Thanks to Fotini’s translating, I learned that Tuleh grew up in the village of Kalamata, where there was a very poor old woman named Despina who used to read people’s cups in exchange for food. Despina spent many evenings at Tuleh’s family’s table, and little Tuleh sat by and watched.
When Tuleh was 15, her parents wanted to send her off to the United States. But when Despina read Tuleh’s cup, she saw that she would stay in Greece, where she would marry somebody with a bike. She also saw a store in the cup.
Lo and behold, it wasn’t long before little Tuleh visited a local shoe store and started chatting with the owner’s brother, whose name was Angelo. The two were smitten, and on a later date Tuleh learned that Angelo was one of the few boys in town with a motorbike. They married the next year.
Tuleh used to read her own cup, but doesn’t like to do so anymore. Ever since Angelo started having heart problems a few years ago, her cups have become very cloudy and gloomy.
Her first pronouncements based on my cup were all fairly obvious things to tell a journalist who is away on a foreign assignment. She told me I will return to my homeland and somebody bearing flowers will be waiting for me. I will have a meeting with a high-ranking person at my office who will commend my work.
I tried asking a question about my more distant future, but she shot it down. You can’t talk when somebody else is reading your cup, Fotini explained. You must simply listen. Tuleh’s expression turned more intense, almost pained, than I’d ever seen it before. As if suddenly possessed by some external force, Tuleh’s words quickened and Fotini struggled to keep up with her.
There were some things she saw that she wasn’t happy about. A slug-shaped bald spot in my cup meant I am going to face some difficulties in the future. Jealous people are going to come after me and try to make things agonizing for me. I will marry a brown-haired man who is more successful than I am. Our marriage will be peaceful, but a few years into it there will be another man. Somebody who makes my heart go: “tapa-tapa-tapa,” Tuleh said, paddling her hand against her breastbone.
“It’s draining,” she said afterwards, her back turned as she lit a cigarette. “I can’t do it too often because I get tired.”
When she turned around again it was clear what she’d meant to say was it upsets her. After all, her cup reading had come true. Who was to say mine wouldn’t?
Tapa-tapa-tapa.