Kiambu

Kiambu is the county just north of Nairobi, and by land it is Kenya’s biggest coffee county: in 2022 it had more than twice as much coffee as any rival. Estates and co-operatives grow the classic Kenyan varieties SL28 and SL34 on red to dark brown clays, and its washed coffees score in the mid-90s with Coffee Review. But sitting on the capital’s doorstep, its coffee land is steadily turning into housing.

The short version

• The most coffee land in Kenya: 20,369 hectares in 2022.
• The most cherry too: 10.63 million kg in the year to June 2022.
• Black currant, citrus and jasmine, scored 93–96 by Coffee Review.
• SL28, SL34 and Ruiru 11, the last named after Kiambu’s Ruiru research station.
• Losing farms to housing, as Nairobi spreads.

What does Kiambu coffee taste like?

Classic Kenya: blackcurrant, citrus and flowers. Coffee Review’s blind assessments of washed Kiambu coffees:

Year	Coffee	Score	Notes
2022	Kiambu (Kariruki family, SL28)	93	Black currant, tomato leaf, tangerine, jasmine; sparkling acidity
2023	Kiambu AA (Kariruki family)	95	Red currant, salted caramel, blood orange, star jasmine, cedar
2023	Mandela Estate AA	94	Black currant, freesia, amber, toffee, cedar; syrupy
2024	Kiambu AA, as espresso	96	Cocoa nib, gardenia, marjoram, clove, black cherry
2025	Kiairia, Gititu Farmers’ Co-operative, AA Top	94	White peach, elderflower, maple, black tea, pink grapefruit
2026	Windrush Estate AB	95	Black currant, pink grapefruit zest, red plum, violet, cocoa

Source: Coffee Review. The coffees were grown from SL28 and SL34, with Ruiru 11 at Windrush.

The grades are improving. At the Nairobi Coffee Exchange in the first seven months of 2024/25, the share of Kiambu’s coffee graded AA rose from 24% to 34%, and AB made up 53%, the highest proportion of any county, while grade C fell from 18% to 4%, The Standard reported.

Where and how is it grown?

In Kiambu County, on the edge of Nairobi. Its red to dark brown friable clays are suited to cash crops like coffee, tea and pyrethrum, and coffee, tea and macadamia are its main industrial crops, the county’s development plan says. The plan’s ward priorities include upgrading coffee factories.

The Ruiru 11 variety takes its name from the coffee research station at Ruiru, now one of Kiambu’s sub-counties. After coffee berry disease destroyed half of Kenya’s crop in 1968, the station bred a compact, disease-resistant variety, released in 1985, World Coffee Research says. Kenya picks its main crop from late October to early January, with a smaller fly crop in May and June, the Daily Nation reports.

How much coffee does Kiambu grow?

Measure	Figure	Source
Area under coffee, June 2022	20,369 ha, the most of 33 coffee counties	Ministry of Agriculture, via Business Daily
Cherry, year to June 2022	10.63 million kg, the most of any county	Ministry of Agriculture, via Business Daily
Sold at auction, first seven months of 2024/25	2,578,904 kg, Sh2.1 billion	Nairobi Coffee Exchange, via The Standard
Auction sales, 2025/26	Fifth of all counties, Sh3.46 billion	Nairobi Coffee Exchange, via The Star

The measures differ: the 2022 figures are cherry, the exchange figures coffee sold at auction, so they cannot be compared directly. By 2025/26 Kiambu ranked fifth in auction sales, behind Kericho, Murang’a, Nyeri and Kirinyaga.

Coffee and the city

Kiambu is Kenya’s most populous county after Nairobi, and its farmland is being subdivided for housing, threatening tea and coffee, Business Daily reports. Nationally, land under coffee fell from 153,030 hectares in 1988 to 109,384 in 2022. USDA says coffee farms around Nairobi, Thika, Kiambu and Nyeri were systematically uprooted for housing over most of the last decade; the trend slowed in the past two years as the property market stagnated, but analysts see that as a temporary reprieve without a clear land-use policy.

Kiambu and other Kenyan origins

• Coffee in Kenya: the whole country, its auction and its harvest.
• Murang’a: second only to Kericho at auction in 2025/26.
• Nyeri: the Aberdare county famous for its AA.