Dr. Honeybrew Is Building a New Audience for Turkish Coffee Reading

The doctor will see you now, but his diagnosis might not be what you were expecting, his methods certainly unorthodox. You may learn that a sibling has something important to tell you, or that you will train to be a midwife and deliver your friend’s future baby, or that you are destined to open a sanctuary for rescue dogs. Welcome to the Turkish coffee room of Dr. Honeybrew, where groups of strangers gather in a fourth floor walk-up in New York City’s East Village to suspend disbelief and get a glimpse into the future.

“Each ceremony is so exciting and unpredictable at the same time, because we’re essentially inviting eight to 10 complete strangers into this living room in which every participant will have their future told,” explains Dr. Honeybrew. “Fortune reading is very personal. It’s a deeply effecting form of art, and so my number one job as the host of the Turkish coffee room is to facilitate a warm, cordial, and inviting atmosphere in which we can create a sense of unity. Once we get into the fortune reading part, everybody feels comfortable to be open, be vulnerable, to perhaps share about their life experiences. That’s really the beauty of this tradition.”

Coffee has ancient roots in Turkey. The first established coffee house in the world is thought to be Kiva Han, established in 15th century Constantinople (now Istanbul), and Turkish coffee culture was designated on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2013. Tasseography, that is, the reading of fortunes from coffee grounds or tea leaves, is an equally ancient practice. Wherever people would gather over drinks, conversation—and speculation— would unfold. “In Turkey, it’s always amongst a group of friends, family members, work colleagues—it’s supposed to be a way to foster conversation.”

Haldun Uluç Ülgen, aka Dr. Honeybrew, is good at reading people. You’d expect as much from a fortune teller. But it’s a skill honed over years of service jobs and his own innate curiosity more than any mystical influence. From buffet waiter to graveyard shift gas station attendant to nightclub bouncer to bartender, Ülgen’s work in service has spanned the gamut. Once he moved to New York City from Minneapolis, he started his own podcast on the side. The show, called Murmurs, featured Ülgen having agenda-free conversations with strangers.

“I posted street flyers all across New York City. It was a very naive and innocent kind of invitation. Basically, I don’t care if you’re homeless, I don’t care if you’re an artist, I don’t care if you’re a dentist—here’s my address. If you have something you’d like to share with the world, my door’s open,” says Ülgen. “Once you invite a thousand strangers into your apartment for these one-off conversations over the course of five years, you kind of develop a sixth sense when it comes to being able to decipher people’s desires, intentions, anticipations. I believe everyone in America should start a podcast and invite their neighbor over for a chat.”

In 2018, Ülgen went to visit his dad back in Turkey, who offered him a coffee reading. Unbeknownst to Ülgen at the time, his father would often read his friend’s fortunes in high school, and even proposed to Ülgen’s mother during a coffee reading.

“If you arrest all suspicion and give yourself into the superstition … you can receive some kind of a message from the cosmos …”

“At that time, I was somewhat lost and despondent and just kind of down in the dumps,” he recalls. “His words gave me such clarity and hope and joy at a time when things felt so dark. There’s this exchange of positivity, and if you arrest all suspicion and give yourself into the superstition, then there is some magic that unfurls out of that, and you can receive some kind of a message from the cosmos, if you will, that says, hey, things are going to be all right. You’re on the right track.”

Upon returning to the States, Ülgen decided to incorporate coffee readings into his podcast. “I would get phone calls from people saying, ‘Hey, my cousin was on your podcast three weeks ago, and they said you did a coffee reading and everything came true—can I come over?’ ” says Ülgen. “Three months after that reading my dad gave me, he passed. And so I took it as a sign, of him passing down a torch to me, as if he was telling me, now it’s your turn to spread light and positivity.”

Ülgen quit his bartending job, became Dr. Honeybrew—a moniker in homage to his dad—and has been offering Turkish coffee readings full time for the past seven years. Some elements of the service he presents very traditionally, such as the preparation of the coffee.

Using a specialized heating device made in Turkey, Ülgen heats a bed of sand to temperatures that swiftly boil liquid. (He has since learned not to turn the device past its medium setting, having once blown the power to his entire building). Next, coffee and water are added to the cezve, a small, long-handled copper pot, and nestled into the sand until boiling with a thick, creamy head. “Some people are traveling from around the world to get a cup of coffee and have their fortune read,” says Ülgen. “I can’t just make it on the stove top, that’s not sexy.”

The coffee itself is imported from Turkey and ground to a consistency as fine as flour. This is important because Turkish coffee is not strained, lest your fortune end up in the trash. The rich, creamy concoction is sipped from a demitasse cup until only the thick, settled grounds remain at the bottom, at which point the saucer is placed over the cup, and the cup is flipped. For this step, the signature Dr. Honeybrew style is on full display, in which the always colorfully attired doctor might rest your cup atop his head, twerk on a hot pink ottoman, or literally somersault across the room.

“I like to say that coffee reading is a bit like the jazz equivalent to soothsaying—it’s very free form, very improvisational. It’s bereft of rules, despite what any grandma in Turkey will try to tell you,” says Ülgen. “I have my way of flipping the cup, but everyone has their own way of doing it. Some believe that it’s sacrilege to have a person other than yourself flip it. But, hey, this is the East Village, so I do a Dr. Honeybrew style, which involves ottoman twerks with every coffee flip. I suppose it’s my way of taking control of my culture as I interpret it, and not letting anyone else define it for me.” 

Once the cup is flipped, the grounds remaining on the inside are examined for clues as to what the future may hold. Here, Dr. Honeybrew employs a little helpful technology, snapping a macro photo of the grounds and projecting the image onto a big screen for the whole group to see. Common shapes and patterns are thought to be associated with certain outcomes; a circle signifies success, a triangle can mean change is coming, dots are a sign of good luck.

“It’s my way of taking control of my culture as I interpret it, and not letting anyone else define it for me.” 

“Even two years ago, I would have said the practice is a lot like a Rorschach test. The coffee grounds resemble inkblots, and whatever meaning you project into the grounds, that’s what the fortune is,” explains Ülgen. “But in this last year, I’ve reached a place where all it really takes is a one-second look inside of a cup and I get filled with so many emotions. It’s almost as though I’m immediately connected to that conduit. I look at it, and then I look at the person, and I just start talking for seven minutes. I’ve seen some of the repeating symbols so many times that it’s almost become second nature.”

Of course, because this is a Dr. Honeybrew reading, the coffee grounds are just as likely to show a giant ice cream cone, or a cat smoking a spliff. Everyone in the room is encouraged to participate, and the traditional group dynamic—an element that Ülgen insists on preserving—serves to heighten the experience. Laughter is shared, tears are shed, hugs are given, and, sure enough‚ connections are created among strangers. “It’s not about your individual fortune reading. It’s about us, all of us in this room, being present for our futures together.”

A gregarious personality and an undeniable showman, Dr. Honeybrew’s ability to pull some truly astonishing revelations from a cup of coffee grounds might be indicative of a heightened psychic ability. Or they might just be the result of a deeply empathetic person who finds connection through curiosity.

“I call myself psychic because that’s what people want to hear; it’s the term they understand. But everything’s open to interpretation. My belief is that everyone is psychic, everyone has intuition. To what degree varies from person to person, but at the end of the day, every one of us fundamentally has intuition,” Ülgen says. “We could probably all get a good read on somebody if we’re willing to be vulnerable enough to connect with someone else on an authentic level.”