In my family, it was the men—my father or brothers—who made the coffee. Here is their method. My parents had many pots of different sizes—for two, three, four, five people.
It is common practice for people in some circles to turn their coffee cups upside down on their saucers when they have finished drinking. As the coffee grounds dribble down the sides of the cup, they form a pattern or image from which at least one member of the company can usually read the fortune of the drinker. A friend has a coffee cup which she brought from Egypt and has kept in a cupboard in England for many years now, carefully wrapped in fine tissue paper and rarely disturbed. She is convinced that it bears the protective image of Rab Moshe (Moses) traced out in coffee grounds at the bottom of the cup.
