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German Wikipedia mentions a Florentine Thomas Tamponelli, who has invented this art. A check at books.google.com leads to the insight, that the key "Tamponelli" gets no results before the year 1800.
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As earliest sign I've for the moment:
1742
Die Wahrsagerin aus dem Coffee-Schälgen
C. G. B.
Langenheim, 1742 - 31 pages
http://books.google.de/books?id=oUTUHAA ... edir_esc=y
no preview
1742
Göttingische Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen:
auf das Jahr ...
Univ.-Buchh., 1742
http://books.google.de/books?id=AzNKAAA ... &q&f=false
.... this is book critique on "Die Wahrsagerin aus dem Coffee-Schälgen"
Reading from the coffee shouldn't be too long time present in Germany ... according this text
1745
A full version of the same book
http://books.google.de/books?id=ebEUAAA ... &q&f=false
The book has only 31 pages. It gives no details of the reading process.
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I found recently that, what is for me in the moment the earliest Cartomancy in Germany (after an intensive check of book.google.com), and this leads to a text in 1763.
Here is the result of this research:
http://trionfi.eu/village/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=1390
The 1763 text is
Das Carneval gelehrter Phantasien:
Oder Sammmlung einiger kleinen Schriften zum Nutzen und Vergnügen
Schäfer, 1763 - 148 pages
http://books.google.de/books?id=L9lDAAA ... en&f=false
Cartomancy is a minor topic in this "Wahrsagerey" article, Coffee reading has more dominance. The whole article on this has a "funny ironical style", as many other later German articles to the theme "Wahrsagerei" are mostly opposed, ironic and NOT pro-Wahrsagerei.
It's said, that Cartomancy is a new art of divination, used by German and Dutch ladies (I've some suspicion, that the article might have been translated from Dutch, but this is not sure; if this is the case, the observing author likely saw the world from a Dutch perspective) and that also reading from the rest of the coffee is new (actually it seems to be older than Cartomancy in Germany.
Coffee reading got in this text an explanation list. This author knows 35 symbols. I analyzed this group:
coffee
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1. open ways ... lucky progress
2. closed ways ... blocked conditions, anger
3. birds ... good friends
4. dog or dogs ... good news
5. fox or foxes ... treacherous persons
6. vipers ... not favorable foes
7. trees ... favorable friends
8. four leaf cloves ... luck
9. flag ... also luck
10. point ... one has gotten a letter
11. various points together ... a present will arrive
12. key (upside) ... a work or position will do well
13. key (downside) ... opposition of 12.
14. coffin
15. leaning person ... sickness, "black points" indicate the position of sickness
16. grapes ... special luck and inner enjoyment
17. black point ... coming accident
18. double eagle ... if high or near to "Näpfgen" (?) it means lucky near marriage
19. double eagle ... if low or near to bottom of "Näpfgen" (?) it means not reasonable hope
20. messenger on foot, who brings a letter ... bad news
21. rose ... honor and good hop on future luck
22. cross ... trouble, sickness, danger and occasionally death
23. garden ... pleasant conditions
24. bouquet of flowers ... love of a good friend
25. dove ... good luck in games
26. fishes ... others tell bad stories about oneself
27. worms ... disrespect and slander by others
28. anchor ... hope
29. small child ... fatherhood
30. stork ... shifting, locomotion, travel
31. ships ... richness and good income
32. heart, within an apple ... noble character
33. heart, within many points ... changing character
34. high tower ... long life and happy age
35. if the signs are higher ... the things announced will arrive in near future
(35.) if the signs are near bottom, there are occasionally numbers (of days or months)
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Recently I found a list of "90-100" coffee figures in a text of 1798:
Ausführliche Beschreibung der Sprachmaschinen oder sprechenden Figuren:
mit unterhaltenden Erzählungen und Geschichten erläutert
Heinrich Maximilian Brunner
Zeh, 1798 - 154 Seiten
books.google.de/books?id=ZL85AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA142
The author had also made a list of divination meanings for French and Bavarian playing cards, which I used in the Spiel-der-Hoffnung thread.
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Coffee Reading naturally depended on the existence of coffee in Europe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoffeeFrom the Muslim world, coffee spread to Italy. The thriving trade between Venice and North Africa, Egypt, and the Middle East brought many goods, including coffee, to the Venetian port. From Venice, it was introduced to the rest of Europe. Coffee became more widely accepted after it was deemed a Christian beverage by Pope Clement VIII in 1600, despite appeals to ban the "Muslim drink." The first European coffee house opened in Italy in 1645.
The Dutch East India Company was the first to import coffee on a large scale. The Dutch later grew the crop in Java and Ceylon. The first exports of Indonesian coffee from Java to the Netherlands occurred in 1711.
Through the efforts of the British East India Company, coffee became popular in England as well. Oxford's Queen's Lane Coffee House, established in 1654, is still in existence today. Coffee was introduced in France in 1657, and in Austria and Poland after the 1683 Battle of Vienna, when coffee was captured from supplies of the defeated Turks.
So the Netherlands (where the author of 1763 likely detected coffee reading as a new custom) wrote (possibly) some coffee history.
Vienna, as I've read, had around 1740 more than 30 coffee houses (but naturally Vienna was rather special with coffee). However, coffee houses are found in every major city. Coffee was expensive and it was celebrated as a new culture. Part of this were the coffee houses. Would we have had the Tarock revolution of c. 1750 without coffee and coffee houses? That's indeed an intriguing question.
Coffee likely opposed the general-in-use alcoholism. This naturally took strong influence at the general intellectual capabilities of all and everybody.. Would I personally write so much, if I hadn't opportunity to drink all this coffee daily? Likely not ... :-)