I travel around Europe a lot and tend to have tea shops stops in as many cities as I possibly can. I shop at Fortnum & Mason in London, Sans & Sans in Barcelona, and the incomparable Mariage Frères in Paris, which is perhaps the best of them all. In Milan, my favorite place is the tiny and unassuming (but expensive) Drogheria Soana, which I prefer to the flashier and even more expensive Peck.

Italy is a strange country, in that very few people drink tea and the average cup you get in a barâ??the Italian equivalent of a coffee houseâ??is dreadful. But this desert has a couple of extraordinary oases, where you can buy or have some excellent tea. One of them is Soana, a family business founded in 1947, which has a large selection of established gardens plus the odd novelty, such as tea from Laos.

On my last visit there, a couple of weeks ago, I bought some Assam Mokalbari. I drunk it today to compare it with the Assam blend I had yesterday. Despite a common Assam-iness, it made for a very different experience.

I steeped two teaspoons in a three-cup teapot of boiling water for four minutes. This cup was darker than the blend, the color sugar has when itâ??s about to burn. It had a hint of a scent, a barely there vegetal maltiness with a whiff of something sweet. It had a good but not overpowering body. Sweet at first impact, it developed a malty complexity as it travelled through the mouth, with a touch of astringency to temper any excess. It was perhaps subtler than I expected, but a neat cup nonetheless. I like to think of it as a Cézanne.

Ah Assam. Although I have never physically been there, I fell in love with this corner of north-eastern India back when I was a teenager, a frighteningly long time ago. I read about it in the books of Emilio Salgariâ??a master of adventure literature most of whose work, sadly, has yet to be translated into Englishâ??where a group of Malaysian, Indian and Portuguese pirates defies bloodthirsty natives, powerful Brahmins and the evil British Empire to conquer a small kingdom.

The magic of the country shines in its tea. Assam has little to do with serene meditation. Itâ??s a passionate, powerful cup that speaks of sleek tigers, lush plants and hollow baobabs that hide the entrance to secret temples. It is Picassoâ??s Cubist period, a scream of colors, textures and shapes, to the Nilgiriâ??s Canaletto â??elegant, restrained and sublimely devoid of emotion.

Of course, I am biased. I like strong teas and am incredibly partial to malty flavors. I like malty tea, malty ale (Duchy Originalâ??s Winter Ale, in particular) and malty whisky. I wonder if an excessive use of Ovaltine as a child may be to blame?

Still, the Assam I tried todayâ??Whittardâ??s House Blendâ??wasnâ??t particularly malty, as far as Assams go. I brewed according to instructions, using three teaspoons for four minutes for a six-cup teapot. The leaves had a strong scent that didnâ??t emerge with as much clarity in the liquor. The cup was a rich dark amber color with an ever so slightly caramelly nose. In the mouth, it had good body with some sweetness, the right astringency but just a hint of malt. The finish was pleasantly long, and I found it supported milk very well.

Then I went back and brewed it my wayâ??using a full four teaspoons for a six-cup pot and steeping for five minutesâ??and liked it better. But I think my tastebuds are biased.