The Marañón River is the mainstem source of the Amazon River, flowing through a deeply-eroded Andean valley called the Marañón Canyon, also known as Marañón River Valley. Northern Peru’s famous nacional bean was rediscovered in this area many years ago, a finding which has since brought incredible fame to the Don Fortunato Farm, as well as the entire region’s cacao (no matter the varietal). The Marañon River is the second-longest river in Peru.

Marañon is a fine flavor cacao strain from Peru, named after the Maranon River valley where it thrives. It is valued for its rarity and its connection to Peru's ancestral cacao heritage, making it significant for makers focused on heritage varieties and Peruvian terroir expression. Marañon is one of those ten evolutionarily unique types identified in 2008, using samples collected throughout the Americas over the previous century. Samples proven to be part of the marañon cluster were found in northern Peru and western Brazil, so named after northern Peru’s Marañon River, along which most of the cluster’s samples were collected. Note that marañon is NOT the same as the nacional cluster, which is native to an overlapping region of the Peruvian Upper Amazon, but genetically distinct.