Five small bowls of capers on pale stone sorted from tiny to large, a mound of salt-crusted capers beside a bowl of brined ones, a few caperberries on their stems, a heap of coarse grey sea salt, a caper flower with purple stamens and a lemon half

How to Buy Capers: The Salt, the Size and the Seal

September 15, 2026

A caper jar is small, the print is smaller, and the word that sells it, nonpareil, is a size and not a quality. The rest of the label carries what the price should depend on: whether the thing inside is a bud or a fruit, which of six sieves it fell through, whether it spent a month in sea salt or an afternoon in vinegar, how much of the net weight is salt or brine, and whether the island on the front is a seal or a picture. This is the label read in the order the lines appear, with the grades that exist, the words that mean nothing, the price per tablespoon and the traps that catch anyone who bought on the word Italian. Our capers guide covers the plant, the pick and the kitchen. The tuna buying guide does this job for the tin. This page is the moment of purchase.

The shelf, sorted

Capers reach a shop in four forms. The brine jar is the main event: small green buds in salted water, usually with vinegar, the version on every supermarket shelf. The vinegar jar is the French and northern habit, sharper, and often sold as the same thing. The salt jar, or bag, holds buds crusted in coarse sea salt with no liquid at all, the form the two Sicilian seals are built around. And the caperberry jar holds a different part of the plant altogether, oval fruits on stems, always in brine. Capers in olive oil are salted capers rinsed and dressed, so the oil is a second ingredient with its own line. The eight lines below are written for the jar, where the money and the confusion live.

Line one: the name

A caper is the unopened flower bud of Capparis spinosa, a low Mediterranean shrub that comes in a spiny form and a spineless one, picked by hand before the flower opens and pickled to bring out its pungency. A caperberry is what a missed bud becomes: the flower opens, sets fruit, and the olive-sized berry on its stem is pickled instead. The Aeolian specification names both, capperi for the buds and cucunci for the fruit, and gives each a size. On a label the word caper alone means the bud. A jar of caperberries says so, and the stems in the glass confirm it. The first trap is the picture: a front that shows a caper flower with its long purple stamens is showing the thing the picker was paid to prevent.

Line two: the size

Capers are sized by sieve, and the names are French because the French trade fixed them. The Spanish export standard, the one public scale, sorts buds by passing them through round holes and defines six calibres. Nonpareil is the smallest, up to seven millimetres. The names climb through surfines, capucines, capotes and fines to gruesas, which means anything over thirteen millimetres, a bud the size of a fingertip. The same six classes are used in the scientific literature on the plant, and the two island seals sit inside the same scale: the Aeolian buds must be at least four millimetres, and the Pantelleria specification runs from four to fifteen, which is why a Pantelleria jar prints its calibre as a band, four to seven or seven to nine, the way an olive jar prints fruit per kilo.

Trade name	Sieve size	What it is for	Where the seals fall
Nonpareil (nompareilles)	Up to 7 mm	Whole, on the plate, in a butter sauce, fried crisp	Pantelleria 4/7 band; Aeolian minimum 4 mm
Surfines	7 to 8 mm	Whole; the usual fine-shop caper	Pantelleria 7/9 band
Capucines	8 to 9 mm	Whole or roughly chopped	Pantelleria 7/9 band
Capotes	9 to 11 mm	Chopped into sauces, puttanesca, tapenade	Pantelleria 9/15 band
Fines	11 to 13 mm	Chopped; the bulk caper	Pantelleria to 15 mm
Gruesas	Over 13 mm	Chopped; sold loose or in food-service tubs	Above the Pantelleria ceiling
Caperberries: finos, medianos, gruesos	Up to 13, 13 to 20, over 20 mm	Whole, on a pick, on the board	Aeolian cucunci maximum 20 mm

Size is labor and texture, not quality. A picker fills a basket of nonpareils slowest, the bud is tightest and the flavor is most concentrated, which is why the smallest cost the most. The Plants study that sorted buds into these classes found the smallest also carried the most polyphenols. A capote is the same plant a week later, softer and more open, and it is the right caper for a sauce where it will be chopped anyway. The trap is paying nonpareil money for capers going into a pan of tomatoes, and the second trap is the word itself. The Spanish standard defines it for Spanish exports. On a jar packed anywhere else, nonpareil is a trade custom, and the only check is to look at the buds against a seven millimetre line, roughly the width of a pencil.

Line three: the grade

The Spanish standard is also the only place a caper grade is written down, and it has three. Extra is the top: closed buds of the characteristic green, and only the three smallest sizes qualify, packed for the consumer in containers of no more than two and a half kilos. Primera allows slight browning and buds that have begun to open so long as the stamens are not all on show. Segunda is everything that meets the minimum and nothing more. The grade is rarely printed on a retail jar, but the definitions tell you what to look for through the glass: a closed bud, and a color that is green tending to mustard. The Aeolian specification adds violet streaks to that color, so a purple tinge on a good caper is the plant, not a fault. A bud split open with its stamens showing was picked late, and a jar with many of them was sorted loosely, whatever the front says.

Line four: the cure

A fresh caper is bitter and is almost never eaten raw. The cure draws out the bitterness and wakes the flavor. The bud stores a mustard-family glucosinolate called glucocapparin, and once the tissue is broken or fermented an enzyme turns it into methyl isothiocyanate, the hot mustard-and-lemon note that is the point of the bud. Mustard and wasabi run on the same chemistry. The cure releases it. Where the cures differ is in what else they leave behind.

Salt is the island method. On Pantelleria the buds are dry-salted exclusively in sea salt, and the pack may contain no more than a quarter of the capers' weight in salt; the finished bud holds fifty to seventy percent moisture and is sold in salt. In the Aeolian islands the buds go into sea salt within a day of picking, layered with coarse salt to start a lactic fermentation, stirred daily for the first eight days, drained and re-salted, and turned weekly for three more weeks, about four weeks in all. The result is a wrinkled, dense bud that tastes of caper and salt and nothing else, and it is the caper a Sicilian kitchen means by the word.

Brine is the volume method and the supermarket method. The Spanish standard caps the brine at twenty-five degrees Baumé, close to saturated, and allows an acidified brine with at least half a percent of acetic or lactic acid; the Aeolian rule for its brined type is twenty-five kilos of salt in seventy-five litres of water. Vinegar is the third way, and the standard requires at least four percent acetic acid in it. A brined caper is plump, mild and ready to use. A vinegar caper tastes of vinegar first.

Cure	The rule on the books	What the bud is like	Before use
Dry sea salt (Pantelleria PGI)	Sea salt only; salt no more than 25 percent of caper weight; moisture 50 to 70 percent; sold in salt	Wrinkled, firm, intensely floral and mustardy	Rinse, soak 15 to 30 minutes, taste, soak again if needed
Dry sea salt (Aeolian PDO, Spanish export)	Aeolian: about four weeks of salt maturation; Spanish: finished product no more than 20 percent salt	As above	As above
Brine (Aeolian PDO, Spanish export)	Aeolian: 25 kg salt in 75 litres water; Spanish: no stronger than 25 degrees Baumé	Plump, smooth, salty, milder	Drain; rinse if the dish is already salty
Acidified brine (Spanish export)	At least 0.5 percent acetic or lactic acid	Plump with a sour edge; most supermarket jars	Drain
Vinegar (Spanish export)	At least 4 percent acetic acid	Sharp; vinegar leads	Drain well; reduce the acid elsewhere in the dish

Line five: the ingredients

The cure is printed on the back, in order. American and European rules both require ingredients in descending order of weight, so the sequence is the recipe. Capers, salt is the island jar. Capers, water, salt, vinegar is a brine with a little acid. Capers, vinegar, water, salt is a vinegar caper wearing a brine jar's clothes, and the front will not say so. Citric acid is an acidity regulator and appears on honest jars; the Divina caperberries list organic caperberries, water, sea salt and citric acid, which is a plain brine with the acid named. Potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate are preservatives, both on the European list of authorised additives, and each is a sign the caper was expected to travel and wait. Sunflower oil ahead of olive oil in a jar that says olive oil on the front is the same trick as on an olive jar: the order is the proportion.

Line six: the weight and the arithmetic

A brined caper jar in Europe prints two weights, and the second matters. The EU labeling regulation requires a drained net weight on solid food packed in a liquid medium and names water, brine and vinegar among those media, so an Italian or Spanish jar carries peso sgocciolato or peso escurrido. American rules require the net quantity of contents, brine included, and no drained weight, so a 3.5 ounce jar may hold two ounces of buds and never say so. The Spanish standard's own rule is that the drained weight should be as high as the process allows, which is a way of saying the liquid is not the product.

The salt jar has the opposite problem. Salt is not a liquid medium, so a salted jar prints one weight and the salt is inside it. The Pantelleria specification allows salt up to a quarter of the weight of the capers, and the Spanish standard allows the finished dry-salted product to be a fifth salt, so a 100 gram jar of salted capers holds about 80 grams of bud. That is the number to divide the price by. And because the useful unit in a kitchen is a spoon, the USDA figure of 8.6 grams for a tablespoon of drained capers turns price per gram into price per tablespoon, which is the honest comparison between a jar that costs three dollars and one that costs twelve. The table uses illustrative prices, not shop prices; drained weights and salt shares are estimates.

Format	Net weight	Capers, about	Illustrative price	Per gram of caper	Per tablespoon (8.6 g)
Supermarket nonpareil in acidified brine	99 g (3.5 oz)	57 g drained	$3.50	6.1 cents	53 cents
Bulk large capers (capotes) in brine	907 g (32 oz)	500 g drained	$9.00	1.8 cents	15 cents
Salento salted capers, small jar	75 g	60 g (20 percent salt)	$8.00	13.3 cents	$1.15
Pantelleria PGI in sea salt	100 g	80 g (25 percent salt)	$12.00	15 cents	$1.29
Aeolian PDO in brine	200 g	120 g drained	$14.00	11.7 cents	$1.00
Caperberries in brine, large jar	907 g (32 oz)	480 g drained, about 140 berries	$12.00	2.5 cents	About 9 cents per berry

Three things fall out. The island jar in salt costs about two and a half times the supermarket nonpareil per gram of caper, a smaller gap than the shelf price suggests, because the supermarket jar is more than a third brine. The bulk capote is a third of the price of the nonpareil and is the right caper for the pan, so large for sauces and small for the plate is the sensible split. And the most expensive caper on the table is $1.29 a tablespoon, which puts the difference between the cheapest and the dearest jar in a puttanesca for four at about two dollars. The salt jar also keeps in the cupboard for as long as the salt lasts, and the brine jar does not once it is open.

Line seven: the origin and the seal

Two seals exist for capers and both are Sicilian islands. Cappero di Pantelleria has been a protected geographical indication since the first European register of 1996: one species, one cultivar, Nocellara, grown and salted entirely on the island, and the label must carry the words Cappero di Pantelleria and Indicazione geografica protetta together, with the packer, the batch and the net weight. Cappero delle Isole Eolie became a protected designation of origin in May 2020, for buds and cucunci from Lipari, Vulcano, Filicudi, Alicudi, Panarea, Stromboli and the three communes of Salina, in sea salt or in brine. The seals are the only proof that the caper saw the island. A jar that says Sicilian capers, or capers of Pantelleria style, or shows a volcano, is making a picture, and a jar with the seal is making a promise an inspector checks.

Protected name	Where	What the seal fixes	Sold on the front as
Cappero di Pantelleria IGP (PGI)	Italy, island of Pantelleria, province of Trapani	Capparis spinosa var. inermis cv. Nocellara; hand-picked; dry-salted in sea salt on the island; salt no more than 25 percent of caper weight; 4 to 15 mm; sold in salt	Pantelleria capers, capperi di Pantelleria
Cappero delle Isole Eolie DOP (PDO)	Italy, Aeolian islands, province of Messina	Buds at least 4 mm and cucunci up to 20 mm; local biotypes Nocellara, Nocella, Spinoso di Salina; salt-matured about four weeks; in sea salt or brine	Salina capers, Aeolian capers, capperi di Salina

Everything else on the front is a country. Spain cultivates about 2,600 hectares and produces roughly 500 to 1,000 tons a year, and Turkey, Morocco and Algeria are among the other Mediterranean producers named in the literature. The country of origin line that American customs law requires on an imported jar names the country customs judged to be the origin, and a brand with an Italian name is not an origin. The trap is the word Italian on the front of a jar whose back says Product of Turkey or Product of Morocco. Neither is a worse caper; the Aegean and the Atlas grow the same plant. It is a different price, and the front should not be charging for a place the back does not name. Where the back names Puglia, read it as its own region: the Salento grows its own, and the Puglia page puts them beside the rest of that table.

Line eight: the salt and the date

The number nobody prints on the front is sodium. In the USDA composition data, drained canned capers carry about 2,348 milligrams of sodium per 100 grams, roughly 200 milligrams in a tablespoon. That is the brined caper; a salt-packed caper is saltier still until it is soaked, and much less salty after, which is why the salt jar is the one to buy for anyone counting. The routine is rinse, soak fifteen to thirty minutes in cold water, taste, and soak again if the bud is still sharp with salt; the flavor stays and the salt goes into the water. Below the sodium is the date. A pasteurized brine jar carries a best-before a year or more out and should go in the refrigerator, submerged, once opened. A salt jar carries a date because the law wants one; the salt is the preservative and the cupboard is the place.

The words that mean something and the words that do not

Word on the jar	Status	What it means
Cappero di Pantelleria IGP, Cappero delle Isole Eolie DOP	Real	A registered island origin and method, inspected
Nonpareil, surfines, capucines, capotes, fines, gruesas	Real in the Spanish export standard	A sieve size; nonpareil is up to 7 mm and is not a grade
Calibre such as 4/7 or 7/9	Real	The size band in millimetres
Extra, Primera, Segunda	Real in the Spanish export standard	The grade; Extra is closed green buds of the three smallest sizes
In sea salt, al sale, sotto sale	Real	Dry-salted; no liquid; soak before use
Drained weight, peso sgocciolato, peso escurrido	Real	The capers without the brine; the only fair comparison
Capers, salt	Real	The whole ingredients line of an island jar
Caperberries, cucunci	Real	The fruit, not the bud; a different product
Product of Italy, Product of Turkey, Product of Morocco	Customs origin	The country customs judged to be the origin
Sicilian, Pantelleria style, Salina style	A picture	Nothing without the seal
Italian (as a brand or a front-label word)	Check the back	A name; the Product-of line is the origin
Nonpareil (on a jar packed outside Spain)	Trade custom	Probably 7 mm or under; hold a bud against a pencil
In olive oil (front of the jar)	Check the back	May be sunflower oil first; the order is the proportion
Capers, vinegar, water, salt	Check the order	A vinegar caper; vinegar leads
Wild, hand-picked	Unregulated	Nearly all capers are hand-picked; the words cost nothing
Gourmet, premium, select	Unregulated	Nothing; premium is not a calibre and select is not a grade

The caperberry, briefly

The berry is bought differently because it is used differently. It is always brined, it is eaten whole, and its stem is the handle, so the lines that matter are the ingredients, the drained weight and the size. The Spanish scale sorts it into finos, medianos and gruesos at thirteen and twenty millimetres. The berry is milder than the bud, with the same mustard note softened by flesh and seed, and its job is the pick in a glass at the martini hour, the board beside the olives, and the plate beside a tin of fish. It is the cheapest thing on the caper shelf per gram because it is mostly water and seed, and the arithmetic above already prices it per berry.

What to buy for which job

For the caper that tastes of the plant, buy salt. I Contadini capers in salt from Racale (shop I Contadini capers in salt from Racale) are the Salento caper, from a town in the province of Lecce, matured under salt for three to four months by the producer's account and then packed in sea salt from the pans at Margherita di Savoia; the ingredients line has two entries, capers and salt. For the island, Caravaglio capers from Salina (shop Caravaglio capers from Salina) come from the Aeolian island whose three communes sit inside the Cappero delle Isole Eolie zone. Soak either, and put them whole on fish, in a brown butter, or fried crisp over pasta, the use the upcoming first caper recipe is built around.

For the glass and the board, buy the berry. Divina caperberries (shop Divina caperberries) are the large jar with the stems on and an ingredients line of caperberries, water, sea salt and citric acid, the plain brine the label decoder above asks for. Beside them on the shelf sit the anchovies that go into the same pan, with a label that has grades and traps of its own. The jars are at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com.