Reading the grounds Honeybrew said it’s not unlike the way one would interpret inkblot images in a Rorschach test, a psychological test used to determine one’s state of mind. It may sound like a bunch of brewhaha — but the tradition of Turkish-coffee re
Fortune-teller sees future in Turkish coffee
FORTUNE favors the bold — coffee, that is. One Friday winter night in New York City, I took a break from my daily grind and stopped by “Dr. Honeybrew’s Turkish Coffee Room” — a theatrical coffee fortune-telling ceremony located in a “top secret” East Village location that had the feel of being in one’s living room.
During the show, up to eight audience members are invited to drink a cup of Turkish coffee, freshly brewed over a bed of piping hot sand, and then have their futures read by Dr. Honeybrew, who has done more than 8,000 readings for people worldwide — including celebs like Philip Glass and Andre 3000.
“When people walk in here, they may walk in as strangers, but everybody ends up leaving as friends at the end,” Honeybrew, 34, told The Post of his shows, which cost $49 a pop on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
The performances sell out every week, and Honeybrew doesn’t advertise — the buzz is all word of mouth.
After enjoying a warm cuppa, included with the price of their ticket, attendees get to see their leftover coffee grinds projected onto a screen with an endoscope camera to magnify the image of the remaining sludge.
That’s when Honeybrew, a second-generation Turkish fortuneteller, interprets the grinds to read people’s fortunes. Honeybrew warns his guests that privacy gets thrown out the door in these readings, and participants, who are gathered in a circle and seated on couches, are encouraged to share their interpretations of what they see.
him to connect to his Turkish roots, but it’s also how he honors the memory of his late father, Orhan. Honeybrew, who was born in Turkey but raised in Minnesota, said his father proposed to his mother 35 years ago during a coffee fortune reading.
Honeybrew makes anywhere between $5,000 to $8,000 a month reading people’s fortunes. In addition to performing five shows a week, he also offers inperson and virtual group rates that start at $400 and corporate team-building fortune shows that start at $1,400. aspects of their personality.
During my fortune, he accurately predicted I’d be traveling to a distant land surrounded by water, mere weeks ahead of my planned honeymoon to French Polynesia. He told me that I’d be conceiving a baby on this trip and before I could say, “I’m not rea- . . .” I heard the sound of a baby crying, and he pulled a doll out from behind the couch.
He also said in one year I’d be doing some kind of “stand-up” performance that would make me widely known — this, of course, was represented by coffee grinds resembling a bunny rabbit at a podium, which made me chuckle.
He nearly moved me to tears when he saw my mother in heaven — and the coffee grinds — watching over me always. The readings may sound personal, and they are, but since everyone’s
so-called secrets are on the table, people experience the emotional ups and downs of each person’s fortune.
As he says himself, Honeybrew puts “every fiber of his being” into readings and his full-bodied performance is to the brim with encouraging words, strategically placed sound effects and his unique brand of silliness. At times, his performance resembles an interpretive dance or a children’s story time.