Getting ready for cupping. This kind involves neither alternative medicine nor testicles, btw.

Maybe it was because at least half the 20 media representatives there were hilarious, irreverent, and interesting. Maybe it’s because Major, the appropriately-named Tazo representative with the crisp, almost naval suit, was so endearingly passionate about teaching us about tea. (Favorite fun fact: All tea – black, white, green, oolong – comes from just one kind of bush.) Maybe it’s because the act of tasting the teas is called “cupping,” and it’s nearly impossible not to have fun when you’re talking about “cupping” with strangers.

Mr. D. Major Cohen, reporting for tea duty, sir.

It certainly has something to do with the fact that the food was truly phenomenal – halibut, squab, crème de caramel, and three different cocktails in three different glasses. And there is something about eating blind that forces you to notice the flavors of your food. But I think the larger point was that eating blindfolded took all the snootiness out of eating snooty cuisine. This is the place where fine dining and elementary school talent show acts collide. It was, well, fun.

We guessed beef, duck, and even emu. Turns out it was darjeeling-rubbed squab. Yum.

See, we were asked to identify what we were eating, so already we were shouting to each other from our dark little worlds. But while we debated whether the second cocktail was made with bourbon or tequila (it was chai liqueur – we were all wrong), we also shared tips on how the hell to eat when you can’t see whether there’s even food on your fork (use a finger, or a small slice of bread). We laughed at each other’s announcements that we’d put our hands in the butter or accidentally eaten three slices of squab at once, or when we admitted we were gesturing or pointing at each other when no one – save the surely amused servers – could see us. We took pictures of each other (still blindfolded). We joked. We punned. Only when the servers whispered in our ears about our next dish - "On your left, above the fork, is a champagne flute," or "In front of you is a long plate that's warm but not hot" - did we try to behave.

This dessert was the only item not to be made with tea. But its butterscotch/almond flavor matched nicely with a cocktail I called the Chai Russian.

When we removed the blindfold two hours later, the sky was darker, the candles brighter (an amusing touch for a dinner table you can’t see, we thought), our dining companions further away than we’d thought, and the entrees much smaller than they’d seemed to our taste buds. And we were also somehow bonded. This group of 20 strangers, who could’ve spent two hours making awkward conversation or ignoring each other or just trying to eat politely, instead were now connected. It was like some kind of team-building exercise from which we all – at least, our raucous, silly end of the table – emerged as, well, a team.

Next step? Blindfolded ropes course.

The blind (my dinner companion, Jen Ancona) photographing the blind (me).