Murang'a

Murang’a runs down from the Aberdares in central Kenya. Tea grows on its high western ground and coffee lower down, and in the 2025/26 season it sold more coffee at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange than any county except Kericho. Its co-operatives wash classic SL28 and SL34 coffees with juicy, sweet-tart acidity.

The short version

• Second in Kenya at auction in 2025/26: 4.96 million kg.
• 9,413 hectares of coffee in 2022.
• Red currant, tangerine, cacao and spice, by Coffee Review.
• Coffee on the slopes east of the Aberdares, and irrigated around Makuyu.
• A county coffee plan adopted nationally as a pilot.

What does Murang’a coffee taste like?

Sweet-tart and spicy. Coffee Review’s blind assessments of Murang’a coffees:

Year	Coffee	Score	Notes
2016	Gondo AA (SL28)	96	Red currant, roasted cacao nib, lantana-like flowers, thyme, pink peppercorn; juicy, sweet-tart acidity
2021	Riakiberu (SL28, SL34)	92	Magnolia, tangerine zest, caramel, baking chocolate, lemon-thyme; brisk acidity

Source: Coffee Review. The Gondo AA was No. 11 on Coffee Review’s list of the top 30 coffees of 2016. The Riakiberu was grown by smallholders around the Riakiberu factory and washed.

Two other coffees sold as “Muranga” were listed by Coffee Review with an origin in Embu County, so we have left them out. The county set up its own cupping laboratory in the last plan period, its development plan says.

Where and how is it grown?

Murang’a rises from 914 metres in the east to 3,353 metres on the Aberdares, the county plan says. It has six agro-ecological zones:

Zone	Where	Main activities
1	The highest ground	Forestry, tea and tourism
2 and 3	Lowlands east of the Aberdares	Coffee and dairy
4, 5 and 6	The flat, semi-arid Makuyu area	Coffee and pineapple plantations, under irrigation

Source: Murang’a County Integrated Development Plan 2023-2027.

Coffee is picked in two seasons in Kenya: the main crop from late October to early January and the fly crop in May and June, the Daily Nation reports. In Murang’a, the plan records thefts of coffee from factories, monkeys damaging crops, and a perception among farmers that coffee prices were low.

How much coffee does Murang’a grow?

Measure	Figure	Source
Area under coffee, June 2022	9,413 ha, fourth of all counties	Ministry of Agriculture, via Business Daily
Sold at auction, first seven months of 2024/25	3,603,708 kg, Sh3.2 billion	Nairobi Coffee Exchange, via The Standard
Sold at auction, 2025/26 (to July)	4.96 million kg, Sh4.33 billion, second of all counties	Nairobi Coffee Exchange, via The Star

Reviving coffee

In its 2018-22 plan period the county distributed 4.2 million coffee seedlings, subsidised inputs, ran farmer field schools and built drying tables, and its coffee directorate wrote a coffee revitalisation action plan that the national government adopted and is piloting in eight counties, the 2023-27 plan says. It also founded the Murang’a County Coffee Platform, part of the Global Coffee Platform, introduced Kenyan coffee to Nebraska in the US and to an online coffee auction in Singapore. The new plan aims to restructure the Murang’a Farmers’ Co-operative Union, digitise weighing at factories and help factories roast and brand their own coffee.

Murang’a and other Kenyan origins

• Coffee in Kenya: the whole country, its auction and its harvest.
• Kiambu: the county with the most coffee land.
• Nyeri: the other Aberdare coffee county.