Basically, a table is lined with 16 cups of dry coffee grounds (lightly roasted) on either side. There are 8 coffees on each table (2 cups per side - 4 cups of each coffee total) and there are usually 4 judges per table. The whole event is to be silent and the only gestures allowed are the ones made to the quality control specialists, indicating that you are ready for water.
All of the judges take in the fragrance of the dry coffee. Boiling water is added, and a crust forms on top of each cup. The judges take in the fragrance of the wet crust. Then after precisely 4 minutes, each judges "breaks" the crust of one cup of each coffee - remember, 4 judges, 4 cups of each coffee. The aroma is noted from the "break" and then any coffee still floating on top is ever so carefully removed. Then, the cupping begins.
Everybody at a table takes turns going to each individual cup, spooning out a tiny bit, slurping it, and then spitting it out into ones personal spit cup. The OCD nightmare would be everybody drinking from the same cups of coffee 4, 5 or 6 times each (though we all have our own spoons which are rinsed between every cup), and also 3 foot tall metal spittoons all over the room meant expressly for emptying said spit cups.
Now for the audio: The slurping is of the loud, raucous variety, meant to ensure oxygen intake to the top of the nasal cavity, as well as to ensure the equal dispersement over the entire surface of the tongue. Many cuppers have the big initial slurp, followed by a series of smaller slurps to move it around. Some do an all out mouthwash style sloshing. The most amazing part to me is the whistling. Some cuppers have developed a highly specialized slurp in which they actually create an ear-piercing, high-pitched whistle with each slurp. I think I may kick my bashfullness today and ask one of them how in the hell they do it. You try it. I have and I can't wrap my head around it.
Add in to the mix the other, less prominent sounds: 24 pencils feverishly trying to translate taste experience into numeric scores. 24 cups of expectorated coffee being emptied occasionally into 3 foot tall metal spittoons. QC specialists constantly emptying and refilling glasses of rinse water.
But even just talking about the slurping is making me light-headed again. Later, more about the awesome people I've met here and the farms I've been to visit.