Cafés in Kenya Nairobi

Where Kenyan coffee grows: Mount Kenya, the Aberdares and the west

The classic coffee counties sit around Mount Kenya and the Aberdare Range: Nyeri, Kirinyaga, Murang'a, Kiambu, Embu and Meru.³ Coffee also grows in Kisii, Bungoma, Nakuru, Kericho, Nandi and on Mount Elgon, and on a smaller scale in Machakos and the Taita Hills.¹

The map is moving west. Up to the 29th auction of the 2025/26 season, Kericho sold more coffee at the exchange than any other county, 6.00 million kg against 3.03 million kg the season before, ahead of Murang'a, Nyeri and Kirinyaga.⁶ Central Kenya's share of auction volume fell from 62% to 51%, while Kisii's earnings rose more than fourfold and Nyamira's nearly sixfold.⁶

From cherry to auction at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange

Smallholders deliver cherry or parchment to cooperatives, which pass it to licensed mills to be hulled and cleaned into green coffee.³ The first auction was held in September 1935, and after independence in 1963 Kenya organized the trade around a weekly, government-run open auction.² The exchange now sells lots by competitive bidding on quality, settles payments through its Direct Settlement System and answers to the Capital Markets Authority.²

Not every bag goes under the hammer: direct sales channels serve buyers in Europe, North America and parts of Asia.⁵ In the 2024/25 season farmers sold 31.33 million kg of clean coffee at the exchange for US$216.44 million; by 8 July 2026 the 2025/26 season had already passed 36.36 million kg.⁶

AA, AB, PB: how Kenyan grades work

Grades sort washed beans by size and density, not taste. AA is the largest bean and the one most sought after for specialty export; AB is a size down and widely used in blends; PB, peaberry, is the small round bean that forms when only one seed develops in the cherry.⁴ C marks smaller beans, E (elephant) very large ones, and TT and T light beans that float or fall through the screens.⁴

MH and ML, known as mbuni, are dry-processed, unwashed coffee.⁴ Cup quality, the taste and aroma, is judged separately and can raise a lot's price beyond what its size grade suggests.⁴

Tea, the bigger crop

Tea arrived in 1903, when settlers planted seedlings experimentally at Limuru in Kiambu County; some of those bushes have grown into trees on what is now the Mabroukie estate.⁷ Commercial growing began in 1924 and stayed in colonial hands until 1956, when African farmers were allowed to plant it.⁷ The Kenya Tea Development Authority was set up on 20 January 1964 to serve small growers; its successor, the Kenya Tea Development Agency, provides services to more than 600,000 of them.¹⁰

Kenya produces over 450 million kg of tea a year in 19 counties, at 1,500 to 2,700 m, and the crop earns about 23% of the country's foreign exchange.⁷ The main growing areas are the slopes of Mount Kenya, the Aberdares and the Nyambene Hills and the plains of Kericho and Kisii.⁸ Most leaf is made by the crush, tear, curl (CTC) method for blending and sold at the public auction in Mombasa; in 2018 Kenya was the world's largest exporter of black tea.⁹

Nairobi: where the crop is priced

Coffee growing in Kenya started on mission farms near Nairobi, which became the nucleus of the industry.¹ The city still sets the price, through the weekly auctions of the exchange that carries its name, and Nairobi County is a coffee county in its own right, though its auction sales fell in 2025/26.²⁶ The coffee shops are in Westlands, Kilimani and Lavington, and in the CBD.