Often a medium-sized bowl, usually hemispherical in shape, is to be seen on the tea table, and it is most likely a slop bowl or basin. According to advertisements these bowls and basins were available in silver, pewter, and ceramic.[64] Before a teacup was replenished, the remaining tea and dregs were emptied into the slop bowl. Then the cup might be rinsed with hot water and the rinsing water discarded in the bowl. The slop basin may also have been the receptacle for the mote or foreign particles--then inherent in tea but now extracted by mechanical means--that had to be skimmed off the beverage in the cup. In England this was probably done with a small utensil known to present day collectors as a mote spoon or mote skimmer. Although the exact purpose of these spoons remains unsettled, it seems likely that they were used with tea. It has been suggested that the perforated bowl of the spoon was used for skimming foreign particles off the tea in the cup and the tapering spike-end stem to clear the clogged-up strainer of the teapot spout. The almost complete absence of American-made mote spoons suggests that these particular utensils were seldom used here. Possibly the "skimmer" advertised in 1727 with other silver tea pieces was such a spoon.[65] No doubt, tea strainers (fig. 21) were also used to insure clear tea. The tea dregs might then be discarded in the slop bowl or left in the strainer and the strainer rested on the bowl. However, only a few contemporary American advertisements and inventories have been found which mention tea strainers.[66] Punch strainers, though generally larger in size, seem to have doubled as tea strainers in some households. The 1757 inventory of Charles Brockwell of Boston includes a punch strainer which is listed not with the wine glasses and other pieces associated with punch but with the tea items: "1 Small Do. [china] Milk Pot 1 Tea Pot 6 Cups & 3 Saucers & 1 Punch Strainer."[67] Presumably, the strainer had last been used for tea. [Illustration: Figure 21.--Silver strainer made by James Butler, of Boston, about 1750. The handle's pierced pattern of delicate, curled vines distinguishes this otherwise plain strainer. (_USNM 383485; Smithsonian photo 44828-J._)]