Kericho

Kericho is famous for tea, but in 2025/26 it became Kenya’s biggest coffee county at auction. Its coffee grows in the lower belt of the county, below the tea estates, and it is the county’s second cash crop. Its rise is part of a wider shift in Kenyan coffee from the central highlands to the Rift Valley and the west.

The short version

• Top county at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange in 2025/26: 6 million kg.
• The lower belt: Kipkelion, Ainamoi, Soin and Roret.
• Coffee is the second cash crop, after tea.
• Honey, plum and flowers in a 92-point peaberry.
• AA share up from 24% to 34%.

What does Kericho coffee taste like?

There is little published detail. Coffee Review scored a Kericho peaberry 92 in 2017: “sweetly pungent, lightly savory”, with unusual aromatics of floral-toned honey, plum, musk and a hint of coriander, a crisply sweet, savoury-edged structure and a lightly syrupy mouthfeel. The grades are improving: early in 2024/25 the share of Kericho’s coffee graded AA rose from 24% to 34%, one of the two biggest jumps of any county, the Nairobi Coffee Exchange’s chief executive told The Standard.

Where and how is it grown?

Kericho County lies at about 2,000 metres, rising towards 3,000 metres in the centre, the county plan says. Tea grows in the upper part, around Ainamoi, Bureti and Belgut, and covers about 35,000 hectares; coffee grows in the lower belt of Kipkelion, Ainamoi, Soin and Roret, though the plan also says it is grown in almost all sub-counties. Kenya’s main crop is picked from late October to early January, with a fly crop in May and June, the Daily Nation reports.

In its last plan period the county’s trade department built 12 coffee co-operatives, against a target of 15, and equipped 24, and distributed coffee seed. Its 2023-27 plan includes a modern warehouse and mill for 200,000 bags at Chilchila, in Kipkelion West, for the Kipkelion District Cooperative Union.

How much coffee does Kericho grow?

The figures vary:

Measure	Figure	Source
Area, June 2022	4,842 ha	Ministry of Agriculture, via Business Daily
Area, after the 2018-22 plan	4,043.20 ha, up from 3,656	County plan
Area	About 2,893 ha	County plan (another section)
Clean coffee, 2018-22 plan	Up from 2,199,905.61 kg to 5,127,840 kg	County plan
Auction, first seven months of 2024/25	253,581 kg, reported as worth Sh2.1 billion	The Standard
Auction, 2024/25 full season	3.03 million kg, Sh2.61 billion	The Star
Auction, 2025/26 (to July)	6 million kg, Sh5.29 billion, first of all counties	The Star

The Standard’s early-season figure is far too small for the value it reports, so one of its two numbers is probably wrong. The county plan gives two different areas.

Kenya’s coffee moves west

Kericho’s rise is part of a bigger shift. In 2025/26, sales from Nandi rose 92%, Bungoma 97%, Kisii more than fourfold and Nyamira nearly sixfold, the agriculture principal secretary said, and smaller counties such as Trans Nzoia, West Pokot, Elgeyo Marakwet and Bomet also grew. The traditional Central Kenya coffee belt’s share of auction volumes fell from 62% to 51%, The Star reports.

Kericho and other Kenyan origins

• Coffee in Kenya: the whole country, its auction and its harvest.
• Kirinyaga: the central county Kericho overtook.
• Murang’a: second at auction in 2025/26.