Capers and caper berries from Murcia for four generations
Alcaparras Asensio Sanchez harvests and processes capers in Almendricos, in southern Spain, right in the heart of one of Spain’s largest caper-growing regions. What the grandfather began as a trade around 1930, the family continues today in its fourth generation, using its own technology for the gentle processing of the buds and fruits.
Alcaparras Asensio Sanchez stands for capers and caper berries from Murcia, the arid southeast of Spain. In Almendricos, a village near Lorca, the caper bush grows in a landscape that provides little water but an abundance of sun. The closed buds become capers, and the pollinated blossoms become caper berries. Both leave the facility in eight sizes, sorted by millimeter.
Two Pedros and the beginning around 1930
The foundation was laid by Pedro Sánchez Pérez, an enterprising merchant from the area who began trading capers around 1930.
He had the location on his side. Almendricos is situated in one of the largest caper-growing regions in Spain; the bushes grow here without irrigation along field edges, embankments, and old walls. Anyone selling capers back then collected what the neighborhood picked during the summer and brought it through the winter in barrels with salt.
His grandson, Pedro Asensio Sánchez, took over the family business and founded Alcaparras Asensio Sanchez, S.L. in the 1970s. He built a new factory and developed his own technique for processing the buds, with a view beyond national borders from the very beginning. Today, the 4th generation leads the company, and the motto still remains above the company page: “la excelencia, nuestro objetivo,” excellence as our goal.
The region explains a good part of the taste. Almendricos belongs to the municipality of Lorca and is located in the dry hinterland between Murcia and Andalusia, where rain is rare and the summer is long. The caper bush doesn't mind this at all; it roots deeply, tolerates heat and barren soil, and rewards both with small, firm buds.
From the bud to the fruit
At Alcaparras Asensio Sanchez, capers and caper berries come from the same plant, and it is only the time of harvest that separates them.
Those who pick the closed flower bud harvest capers. They come in 8 calibrations in the jar, from the tiny nonpareilles at 4 to 7 millimeters, through surfines, capucines, and capotes, up to the gruesas at 13 to 14 millimeters. The names come from French trade and have established themselves as the language of size.
The smaller the bud, the more concentrated its taste and the more elaborate the sorting process. The nonpareille is therefore considered the finest grade and is the most expensive, while the gruesa provides crunch and remains recognizable as a caper on the plate. Worlds lie between the two in price and a few millimeters in diameter.
If the blossom remains on the bush and is pollinated, it grows into a caper berry, the alcaparrón in Spanish. The company distinguishes 4 sizes, from the delicate fino through entamado and mediano to the robust gordo, and it is internationally known for the soft texture of its caper berries. They are not eaten like a spice, but like an olive, lifted from the jar by the stem. We stock the jar of caper berries in vinegar on our shelf.
What else goes into the jar besides capers
The origin is the caper, but the range has long reached further into the Mediterranean pantry.
Green peppercorns in brine are included, as are whole garlic cloves, red guindillas, cocktail onions, cornichons, and olives. These are the jars that sit on the counter in Spain when something salty is served with wine, and which have their place in every tapas bar between ham and almonds. The guindilla is the mild relative of the chili, thin, green, and pickled in vinegar.
The green pepper is the silent star for the kitchen. Unlike dried peppercorns, it remains soft and can be crushed with a fork, which makes it the basis for any pepper sauce. The cocktail onions and cornichons, in turn, are the classic accompaniment to terrines, cheese, and cold roasts.
Bottling takes place for three worlds simultaneously: large containers for industry, jars for the deli counter, and lightweight containers for catering. Experience from Morocco and Turkey is incorporated through partnerships, while processing and bottling are handled from the headquarters in Spain. You can find related products under antipasti and Mediterranean specialties and on the Spain region page.
Fourteen thousand square meters for a small bud
Behind the delicate caper, Alcaparras Asensio Sanchez operates a factory with 14,000 square meters of production space, plus an additional 20,000 square meters for storage and preservation.
The harvest itself remains handwork, and that will not change. The buds sit individually on thorny shoots, they open within a few hours, and anyone who arrives too late has a blossom instead of a caper. Picking takes place from June until late summer, early in the morning, bush by bush. The same bush is revisited over the weeks.
After the harvest comes the sorting, and it determines the price. The buds run over screens and are separated by diameter, because a jar of nonpareilles must not contain any capotes. Anything that grew too large moves into the next calibration; nothing is wasted, and every size finds its market.
After that, the preservation determines the character. Dried in salt, the caper remains firm and floral and needs to be soaked before cooking; in a salt-vinegar brine, it becomes milder, more acidic, and is ready to use immediately. Sorting and preservation are carried out according to international IFS and HACCP standards, and the company also produces organic and kosher quality items. No preservatives are needed for this; salt and vinegar do the job alone.
From Almendricos to the world
The jars from Almendricos are now on shelves in more than 35 countries, and the path there has led through four generations of family work.
The company name says quite simply what it is about. Alcaparras means nothing other than capers in Spanish, the fruits are called alcaparrones, and Asensio Sánchez is the family name. Anyone buying a jar of alcaparras in Spain gets exactly what is on the shelf here.
In the kitchen, capers and caper berries are two different ingredients. The small caper seasons and provides salt and acidity at the same time; it belongs in vitello tonnato, in pasta sauce, on pizza, with fried fish, and in tapenade. If you crush them slightly with a fork, the flavor distributes more finely in the sauce.
In Spain itself, the caper lands less often in the sauce than on the plate beside it. It lies next to the boquerones, the anchovies pickled in vinegar; it belongs in ensaladilla rusa, the potato salad of tapas bars; and it sits on the Gilda skewer next to an olive and a guindilla. Salt meets acidity and heat there.
The caper berry, on the other hand, remains whole. It comes to the table as an aperitif, goes into a salad, lies on bread with ham, or next to a boiled egg. The stem is more practical than it looks, as it allows the fruit to be held and bitten off.
Those who want to taste the difference between the two will find both side by side in the capers and caper berries category, along with the salt-cured capers from La Nicchia from Pantelleria. The Spanish southeast and the Sicilian volcanic island—the same bud, two different approaches.
