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The purpose of the experiment was to study the effect of Artemisia annua on meat quality of cashmere goat. Forty castrated rams with similar age (4 months old), weight and health were randomly divided into two groups, with 20 replicates in each group and one goat in each replicate. The control group (CON group) cashmere goats were fed with a basic diet with concentrate to forage ratio of 50∶50, and test group (AOM group) cashmere goats were fed with a basic diet with 3% Artemisia annua instead of the same proportion of coarse diet. The test period was 90 d. The results showed that there was no significant difference in the physical and chemical properties of muscle between AOM group and CON group (P>0.05). Compared with CON group, the content of crude protein in AOM group was significantly increased (P<0.05), while the content of crude fat was significantly decreased (P<0.05). The content of cholesterol in kidney fat, subcutaneous fat and longissimus dorsi muscle decreased significantly (P<0.05), while the content of cholesterol in omentum fat tended to decrease (P>0.05). The experiment indicates that adding 3% Artemisia annua to diet can increase the crude protein content of longissimus dorsi muscle and decrease the crude fat content, reduce the cholesterol content of longissimus dorsi muscle and adipose tissue, which is beneficial to improve the nutritional quality of mutton. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]