Chè may be served either hot or cold, and eaten with a bowl and spoon or drunk in a glass.[2][1] Each variety ofchè is designated by a descriptive word or phrase that follows the wordchè, such aschè đậu đỏ (literally "red beanchè").
Chè may be made at home, but are also commonly sold in plastic cups at Vietnamese grocery stores.
In northern Vietnam,chè is also the word for thetea plant.Tea is also known asnước chè in the North or more commonlytrà in both regions.
There is a nearly endless variety of named dishes with the prefixchè, and thus it is impossible to produce a complete list. What follows is a list of the most typical traditional varieties ofchè.
Chè đậu trắng - made fromblack-eyed peas. Oftentimes, this dessert is just referred to aschè đậu as it is one of the most common bean dessert for southern Vietnamese.
Chè đậu ván - made fromDolichos lablab (hyacinth beans); a specialty inHuế
Chè bánh xếp - green beans wrapped in a tapioca skin dumpling, eaten in a coconut milk base with smaller pieces of tapioca. Translated to English, the dish is "folded cake dessert".
Chè trôi nước or Bánh chay - balls made from mung bean paste in a shell made of glutinous rice flour; served in a thick clear or brown liquid made of water, sugar, and gratedginger root.
Chè bà ba - made from taro,cassava andkhoai lang bí, a kind of longsweet potato, with red skin and yellow flesh.
Chè bà cốt - made from expanded glutinous rice
Chè thưng - name translates to combo dessert in Vietnamese. One version is made from dried redjujube,peanut, and driedAuricularia auricula-judae fungus, while another is made from taro, cassava, green bean, sea weed, and water chestnuts
Bubur cha cha orBocha - a Vietnamese interpretation of a popular sweet soup originating from Malaysia and Singapore, found in Hanoi.
Chè Thái - a sweet fruit soup, which is believed to be a version ofThailand'stub tim krob, but the Vietnamese version uses a variety of tropical fruits, while the Thai version uses strictly water chestnuts.