PressEthic

On the front page of Monday’s Times, there was an article about China becoming the world’s top exporter of tea.

The article reviewed changes in Chinese culture that have been leading to young people choosing Western soft drinks over tea, as well as ways in which Chinese farmers will benefit and tea farmers worldwide may suffer.

The article in and of itself seems fairly standard; no major breaches of ethics were committed, at least that I noticed.

The headline didn’t seem quite right to me, though – even though it was a reference to a throwaway line in the article:

Although no one can yet read the tea leaves, several challenges could temper China's tea business.

I mean, you can call it white guilt if you like, but to me it seemed sort of insensitive of the paper to put a reference to an occult practice right above a picture of a woman serving tea in what I assume is supposed to be a traditional setting. It’s like a giant hammer hitting us over the head, saying, “Other cultures are mystical and different and strange!”

But I thought about it, and I made myself a deal: I would not post to this blog nitpicking about how wrong the reference was if I found evidence that the reading of tea leaves, or Tasseography, was at all common in China. The copy editor might know something I don’t, in this case.

Well, what information I could find suggests that while the tea came from China, the readings originated in Europe and the Middle East. More research – which includes no encyclopedias more reputable than Wikipedia, because both Encarta and Britannica reported no articles on tasseography – turned up this tidbit:

Although tasseography is commonly associated with Gypsy fortunetellers, the tradition of tea leaf reading arises independently from Asia, the Middle East and Ancient Greece. Modern tasseography has also been associated with the Scotch, Irish and cultures throughout Eastern Europe.

So they might read tea leaves in China. But even this is an awfully tenuous link.

It’s not a horribly offensive headline to start. But the fact that is set off an alarm in my head makes me wonder if anyone else noticed this headline and found it odd.

My advice to this copy editor? Just be really careful with your references to divination. Enough people believe in it -– and enough don’t -- that being flippant about it is somewhat risky.