Embrace Your Fears With the Tarot King of New Orleans

Thrillist
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Otis Briggs may be the only person who knows what’s coming next in New Orleans. Since 1972, the clairvoyant has worked at Bottom of the Cup Tea Room -- a tea shop at 327 Chartres St in the French Quarter, where Briggs flips tarot cards, reads palms, and predicts your future in a city that lives only for today.

“This is a karma city,” Briggs says. “People come here to work out their karma. Either good, bad, indifferent.”

People come to Briggs, he says, for answers to questions or to find some sort of closure. Oddly, the tea room, open since 1929, makes a fitting venue for his trade. In its early days, women came to take a break from a busy day of shopping in the French Quarter. Once they finished their tea, a psychic would come to their table and read the leaves, thus giving the quirky shop its name.

These days, Bottom of the Cup sells crystals, jewelry, incense -- and, yes, more than 100 tea varieties. A visit there still offers the rare opportunity to enlist a professional to literally read your tea leaves.

“Most people have a fear of the unknown,” Briggs says. “But it's the unknown you should welcome.” -- Ciera Velarde

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Ciera Velarde is an editorial production assistant at Thrillist. Follow her on Instagram.