Meru

Meru is a county on the slopes of Mount Kenya, where coffee grows alongside tea, macadamia and, above all, miraa (khat). Its smallholders grow both the classic Kenyan varieties and the newer disease-resistant ones, and its best washed coffees have black currant and a bright, wine-like acidity.

The short version

• Mount Kenya’s slopes, from 300 to 5,199 metres across the county.
• Black currant, blood orange and lilac: 95 points with Coffee Review in 2026.
• SL28, SL34, Ruiru 11 and Batian.
• 8,708 hectares of coffee in 2022, fifth in Kenya.
• A county coffee mill at Chaaria.

What does Meru coffee taste like?

Bright, berry-led and floral. Coffee Review’s blind assessments:

Year	Coffee	Score	Notes
2012	Kinjo Peaberry	94	Lemon blossom, tart plum, apple, honey, lemon, stone fruit; tartly bright acidity
2026	Gichugene (smallholders)	95	Black currant, blood orange, cocoa nib, lilac, sugarcane; sparkling, wine-like acidity; dense, syrupy body

Source: Coffee Review. The 2026 lot, called “classically Kenya”, was grown from SL28, SL34, Ruiru 11 and Batian and washed. A peaberry is a bean that develops alone in the cherry instead of as one of a pair.

Batian, released in 2010, is a tall, coffee-berry-disease-resistant and rust-tolerant variety, World Coffee Research says.

Where and how is it grown?

Meru’s altitude runs from 300 metres to 5,199 metres, the top of Mount Kenya, giving it a wide range of microclimates and farming zones, the county plan says. Commercial farming includes sizable plantations of tea, coffee, macadamia and wheat and barley, though the farm economy is dominated by the miraa trade. Kenya’s main crop is picked from late October to early January, with a smaller fly crop in May and June, the Daily Nation reports.

The 2023-27 plan’s coffee work:

Plan	Detail
Factories	Upgrade, refurbish and digitise coffee factories, the co-operative wet mills
Milling	Upgrade the county coffee mill at Chaaria
Marketing	Support milling, branding, packaging and market access
Finance	A coffee and tea revolving fund; input packages for farmers

Source: Meru County Integrated Development Plan 2023-2027.

How much coffee does Meru grow?

Measure	Figure	Source
Area under coffee, June 2022	8,708.4 ha, fifth of all counties	Ministry of Agriculture, via Business Daily
Auction sales, 2025/26 (to July)	Hundreds of millions of shillings	Nairobi Coffee Exchange, via The Star

Meru had the fifth-largest coffee area in Kenya in 2022, after Kiambu, Kirinyaga, Nyeri and Murang’a. No tonnage for the county was published in these reports.

Meru and other Kenyan origins

• Coffee in Kenya: the whole country, its auction and its harvest.
• Embu: smallholder coffee from Mount Kenya’s upper midlands.
• Kirinyaga: the county that sold the most coffee at auction early in 2024/25.