The Mascots

Madame Macchiato

Bean Belt

When I was just a young bean, I had a vague awareness of the fact that my mother often had visitors with whom she drank coffee. These visitors would ask my mother questions, and she would look thoughtfully into a coffee cup and answer these questions. Naturally, as I was at the time much more interested in juvenile means of amusing myself, I took no special interest in my mother’s social interactions. Moseying through our farm, looking at the animals, mucking through compost heaps, and poking fun at the seedlings were all far more entertaining ways to spend my time than sitting down to coffee with my mother and her houseguests.

As I grew older, however, I matured and ripened. Many say that beans of my generation were forced to mature far too soon for our own good, for, as you undoubtedly know, the world’s coffee market took a hard hit by the coffee crisis. Young beans like me were exposed to all manner of unpleasant situations. Our farm suffered greatly – it seemed as though there was never enough money for even the most meager sustenance. Conditions didn’t improve with time, either, and to this day things aren’t the way they used to be. However, there were many others who were even worse off than we were. Concerned beans from a plethora of places I had never even heard of were coming to see my mother in swarms, asking tearfully about their farms and loved ones. My mother, as usual, would treat them to a cup of coffee and answer these questions to the best of her ability. How did my mother gather the information that she gave her visitors? And, more intriguingly, what was going on when said visitors returned days, weeks, or months later to tell my mother that she had been completely right? I did what any youngster would’ve done. I asked my mother.

She told me that she read the information in the visitors’ coffee cups, and that the patterns formed by the coffee grounds told her things about their lives and futures. I was intrigued. She asked me the fateful question: would I like to learn how to read coffee grounds? “Yes,” I replied, and there began my entrance to the world of cafeomancy.

I have loved it from the get-go – it’s beautiful, entrancing, and entertaining. Coffee reading was a bit of a game for me back then, and, come to think of it, it still is. While my mother took it quite seriously and was incredibly accurate in her readings, I prefer to read coffee as a pastime or a social catalyst, though I do strive for accuracy. It’s quite a conversation starter, to be sure. I’ve made many a friend through cafeomancy, and I must say I’m quite pleased with it. To me, it’s more than just simple coffee reading: it’s a hobby, a means to offer guidance, and a tribute to my mother.

I hope sincerely that you enjoy the site. We’ve worked very hard on it, after all. With any luck, you’ll learn as much and have as much fun when exploring it as we all did during its creation.

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