After the death of her father, her mother remarried in 1740 to a chef of the royal household, Arfvid Arfvidsson (d. 1767), and Ulrica took the name of her stepfather.

Ulrica Arfvidsson grew up comfortably in an environment where she heard many rumours and gossip of the higher circles in society.

Arfvidsson had her business at Lästmakargatan not far from Johannis Church in Stockholm, hidden away in an alley where mainly poor people, such as "blind and crippled women" [1] lived, in order for her customers to come to her discreetly.

During this time, several female professional fortune tellers supported themselves by this method, and they were commonly referred to as "coffee goddesses", but Arfvidsson became the most successful of her trade.

The other has been called Adrophia, Adotia and Adrecka Dordi (d. 1800), who was of African origin and described as a Turkish woman from Morocco, which was seen as exotic.

Reportedly, Ulrica Arfvidsson had a wide net of informers from all over society, reaching from the royal household to private homes.

She was said to have been an informer of the police, and members of the royal house asked her for political advice, such as the future King Charles XIII of Sweden.

In 1786, Ulrica Arfvidsson was consulted by King Gustav III of Sweden in disguise, who came to her in the company of Count Jacob De la Gardie posing as someone else.

[4] When they entered the palace and were proceeding up the stairs, they met a man with a sword leaving the apartment of the King's sister-in-law the duchess of Södermanland, consort of Prince Charles, who was suspected of conspiring against him.

After the murder of Gustav III, the chief of the police, Henrik Liljensparre, interviewed her about the attitude toward the King in the upper class opposition, and she is said to have been of some assistance in the investigation.

In 1792, Ulrica Arfvidsson was also consulted in connection to the conspiracy of Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt, who conspired to depose the guardian government of King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden by an alliance with Russia.

Arfvidsson consulted her coffee leaves and stated that the man of whom Rudenschöld was thinking (Armfelt) had recently left the country in anger over a child (the King) and a small man (the regent, Duke Charles), whom he would soon scare by an agreement with a woman with a non-royal crown on her head (Catherine the Great).

In preparing his opera Gustavo III between 1857 and 1859, the Italian composer, Giuseppe Verdi, had his librettist, Antonio Somma, use Scribe's libretto as its basis.