Although the tea strainer was among the numerous pieces of domestic silver which did not generally make their appearance until the very final years of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century, the English tea table was not devoid of a utensil for a similar purpose. The tea strainer bore little resemblance to this predecessor and can in no way be said to be a development of it, unlike so many other items which evolved into utensils which we use today. Its forerunner was an extraordinary little implement called the mote skimmer, which was usually a little longer than a tea spoon. Its bowl was pierced in a simple pattern and its rounded, slender tapering stem ended in a point. The pierced bowl was used to skim off foreign matter from the tea, hence its name, from mote, meaning particle of dust or unwanted matter. The bowl became slightly more ornate over the years, usually with a basic pattern comprised of crosses and scrolls. The pointed stem also had a use and was applied to the perforations in the teapot spout so that these would remain unblocked.

Antique Collector MagazineThe mote skimmer played an important role in Georgian tea equipage and was sometimes sold en suitewith tea spoons. Many are still in existence. They are recorded as early as the last years of the seventeenth century and were described variously in the eighteenth century as long tea spoons, strainer spoons and stirrer spoons, while today they are also known as mote spoons. It is unusual to find a fully-hallmarked mote skimmer, since many early skimmers bear only a maker’s mark and the lion’s head erased, or a maker’s mark and a lion passant on later examples. Often the marks are difficult to determine since the shape of the tapering stem prevented the marks from being satisfactorily punched.

Over the years there has been controversy concerning the purpose of the mote skimmer. One theory was that the pointed or barbed end was used for spearing olives, like a similar spoon used on the Continent, or for spearing lemon or orange pips in punch, or even for use as shellfish spoons, but various references to these enigmatic tools mention them in connection with tea and this has come to be generally accepted. In early examples the back of the perforated bowl was strengthened by a rat-tail stretching from the stem, and the piercings of the bowl usually consisted of simple, circular holes: Georgian examples later replaced the rat-tail at the back of the bowl with a droplet or shell, or both, or some similar contemporary motif. Mote skimmers the size of very large table spoons are sometimes seen, often being quite heavy in weight and having George III hallmarks. These were probably used in conjunction with tea urns. Others have been noted with a marrow spoon handle instead of a barbed point, and measuring around seven inches in length. These, it is thought, were an adaptation of the tea mote skimmer for general culinary skimming. Also in circulation are bogus mote skimmers, adapted from ordinary tea spoons, but these can be distinguished from the authentic article by their generally shorter length.

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Mote skimmers and tea strainers