Origin notes
Nairobi auction prices, grades and screens, growing regions and the mechanics of buying Kenyan green coffee, written for importers and roasters by the exporter.
When Kenyan coffee is harvested: main crop and fly crop
Main crop is picked October to December, fly crop April to June, but lots sell in numbered auction weeks that run across the new year. Add four to six weeks from Mombasa and a buyer is working three calendars at once.
SL28 or Batian? How Kenya's coffee varieties differ
Five cultivars sit behind almost every Kenyan lot, yet the auction catalogue grades on screen size and defects and never records variety. Here is where the sources disagree, and the questions that belong in a container buyer's due diligence.
How the Nairobi Coffee Exchange auction works
Sale 42 on 29 September 2026 moved 14,930 bags at an average of 5.99 dollars a kilogram. Behind that figure sit the sale calendar, the sample room, the reserve, the warrant and the lots that find no bidder.
Kenyan coffee grades explained: AA, AB, PB and the rest
A grade letter is a sieve size, not a cup score. At Nairobi sale 41, AA averaged 6.87 dollars per kilogram against AB's 6.64, yet AA lots alone ranged from 4.50 to 7.60.