Ingredients for this dessert is quite simple and rustic (tapioca starch, coconut milk, pomelo flower, mung beans) but cooking this is totally not easy. To creat the proper flavor for this dish, the cook must be patient, refined and talented. Tapioca is dissolve with cold water, and carefully purified. Pour tapioca liquid into a pot and cook in low heat, add pomelo flower, soaked mung bean and continuously stir the mixture until it turns clear and viscous. You must be assured that the soup is not over-cooked or under-cooked. If you let the heat too high, the natural aroma of pomelo flowers will be lost. A well-cooked sweet soup has viscous syrups and nice yellow scattered mung beans. Finally, we drizzle a little coconut milk on the top, let greasy taste of coconut blend with sweetness of the soup. Che hoa cau is always ladled into small bowls, and often served with xoi vo (mung bean coated sticky rice). 

The gracious image of the street peddler sitting at the corner of old quarter, ladling steaming hot bowls of areca flowers sweat soup with spreading subtle aroma has imprinted into the mind of the Hanoians and visitors who ever come to this cultural city.

                                                       Source: Hanoi’s cuisine - Hanoi City Tourism Department