Kenya Coffee-Growing Regions

Kenya coffee growing regions include the Mount Kenya region: Thika, Kirinyaga, Nyeri, Kiambu, and Muranga; Eastern region of Embu, Meru and Machakos; Western region of Bungoma, Mt Elgon, etc and Rift Valley region of Nandi Hills. 

These prime coffee-growing areas include a wide range of native forest ecosystems that support a variety of wildlife.

The coffee industry of Kenya involves many small farms and cooperatives as well as larger estates. In all about six million Kenyans are involved in the country’s coffee industry.

Kenya’s also has a cooperative system of milling the coffee as well as marketing, and auctions are held each Tuesday during the harvest season at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange.

Kenya Coffee Plant Varieties

Kenya’s red-orange, loamy volcanic soils and the region’s moderate climate as well as the ideal equatorial sunlight and well-chosen and Kenya coffee plant varietals (e.g., most notably SL28 but also SL34, Kent, Ruiri 11, K7, Blue Mountain and lately, the Batian) allow Kenya to be perhaps the planet’s most consistent producer of world-class premium gourmet coffees.

Flowering of Kenya Coffee Plants

Kenya’s coffee crops in general flower after the rains commence—this occurs in March and April, with the coffee cherry (fruit) ripening from May to July, and then again in September and October, with most of Kenya’s coffee cherry coming to ripeness from October to December.

Acidic soils provide optimal growing conditions on the upper elevation high plateau regions surrounding Mt. Kenya including the Aberdare Range, Nyanza, Kisii,  Bungoma, Kericho, and Nakuru. The botanical Arabica varietals that are grown in these areas were first introduced from Ethiopia.