What's a "Tea basin"?

[Mercia118]

Pretty much as the subject says, can anyone enlighten me as to what a tea basin is?
I'm studying up on an 1877 case where they repeatedly speak how they were drinking sherry out of a tea basin. For context:
Mr. CARTWRIGHT:  What did  you drink out of ?
Witness : A tea basin.
Mr. CARTWRIGHT:  Is that the smallest article you had got there?
Witness : Yes, it was.
Mr. CARTWRIGHT:  No glasses or tumblers, or anything of that sort?
Witness: No, sir, we never use them.

I'm guessing that it's a fairly sizeable object, as there's mention that one man was "helped" to drink from it, and there appears to have been quite alot of chugging taking place 
The men in question were boatmen, so I can't imagine they had anything fancy

[Ruskie]

Without looking at google this is just a guess ...

I believe that coffee (and possibly tea as well after it was introduced into Britain) was drunk from something similar to what we know today as a cup and saucer, however I think that the cup may not have had a handle and the saucer was very deep. The liquid was poured from the cup into the saucer and then drunk from the saucer.

I might be on the wrong track completely, and I am not sure if it would have been called a "basin" because that does imply something much larger, but this is the first thing that came to mind when I read your post. Unsure how that ties in date wise with your research and fashions in crockery.

Maybe the chap who needed help to drink from it was a bit the worse for wear after drinking too much sherry. 

[PaulineJ]

It may also have been a slop basin. (dregs emptied into it, before brewing fresh in pot)
3" deep and 5+1/2" wide.

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O77482/slop-basin-unknown/

[mazi]

Having had many holidays on a canal boat I can say that most glasses and crockery don’t last very long.

I imagine that in the 1870s and given the huge lack of space in a narrow boat cabin,  it was an all purpose small basin or bowl.

Mike

[Ruskie]

I would say that a slop basin seems more apt in this context.

[Gadget]

I recall us having a tea basin when I was young. It was used to rest the tea strainer on.

However, if they drank from it, it is most likely to be what Ruskie has described - a tea cup without handles - like the Japenese tea bowls.

Gadget

[Flattybasher9]

The case in question.
Page 67 of 136
Case 208 May 5 1877. THE SUSPECTED MURDER OF A CANAL BOATMAN NEAR CHESTER – THE PRISONERS
BEFORE THE MAGISTRATES, John Probert and Jane Probert.

Malky

[Mercia118]

Thanks everyone,

Mallky is right, this is the case I'm studying.
Living on an old working boat, I've taken to seeing what occurrences happened at our various tie-ups and this one is unusually detailed.
They describe how they've got the alcohol into a "brown can" that's on the roof, what we'd recognise as a buckby can, but I've not been able to figure out this basin business!
One of the statements say how "he had no more than teacup worth" and, in the context of everyone taking a good spell of it, it suggests to me that the basin is fairly large..
I've seen sets on ebay of matching victorian pottery with a teapot, cups, sugar bowl and, what I always assumed was, a water jug and basin.. but if they were using a "wash basin" then that's alot of sherry

[ThrelfallYorky]

Reading the title of this, I assumed a slop basin - part of the tea service into which dregs would be poured, to be disposed of, allowing second ( and subsequent?) bowls, dishes or cups of tea to be poured and drunk.