    |
 |
| Chicken-mangosteen salad is on trend on social media |
There are clips on TikTok providing instructions of how to prepare green mangosteen, the recipe for “mangosteen chicken salad” and the recipe for the “magical” soursop tea that have attracted millions of views and reactions from netizens.
Nguyen Thi Bich Huyen from Hue city said: “I saw on TikTok that many people make mangosteen chicken salad, so I also learn to make it and bought ingredients to try. I used to think that chicken and mangosteen would not go well together, but when I finished it, it turned out to be a tasty dish. It was more delicious than expected.”
“Soursop tea is quite delicious. I have tried it at many milk tea shops and have to admit that the more I drink, the more I am attracted by this drink. It is suitable for cooling off in the summer. I will try to find out the recipe and make it at home to save money,” said Bich Huyen.
|
 |
| The trendy soursop tea is something you can’t miss this summer |
Many restaurants, eateries, and milk tea shops in Hue have promptly captured the trend to please their customers. According to Ms. Kim Chi, the owner of a convenience store in Hue, the mangosteen chicken salad, which is a specialty in the Southeast region and the Mekong River Delta, is served to guests when the mangosteen season comes. Thanks to TikTok, many people know about this dish.
Mangosteens used for salad must be mature but still raw with green pale outer skin, so that they are crunchy enough. But processing is laborious because green mangosteen has a lot of latex. A dish of mangosteen chicken salad costs from 100,000 to 200,000 VND depending on the size of the dish and the rarity of this fruit.
The green mangosteen available at fruit stalls in Hue comes mostly from the southern provinces, and the soursop is from the Mekong Delta provinces. These two types of fruit are in good harvest. They have been shipped to the Central provinces and got sold out in recent months.
There has been a huge demand of these two types of fruit these days, and thus small traders must even place daily orders with garden owners to satisfy the needs of customers who ordered in advance. The price of soursop ranges from 90,000 to 120,000 VND/kg, pre-prepared green mangosteen ranges from 65,000 to 80,000 VND/kg, preprocessed green mangosteen costs from 300,000 to 500,000 VND/kg.
Explaining the reason for such a price, many small traders said that green mangosteen is quite laborious and time-consuming to prepare. Because it has a lot of latex if it is not ripe, it has to be continuously washed under a running tap to keep it clean and white, as well as retain its crunch.
For soursop tea, many coffee shops and milk tea shops have also updated this trendy drink to their menus for many customers have ordered it.
Ms. Phuong, the owner of a milk tea shop, said: “Many customers have sent messages to our Facebook fan page suggesting adding soursop tea to the menu. In order to satisfy them, I also spent much time learning the recipe and searching the ingredient sources. It took me more than a month to finalize a standard recipe for a tasty soursop tea before I added it to the menu. I am pleased to have received many compliments from customers.”
Phuong also added that soursop is now quite rare, so it is difficult to find a good batch. Sometimes she got all green, and she had to incubate them a couple of days before making tea for customers. Along with that, the price of soursop has also increased. Even at wholesale price, it must also cost 50,000 VND/kg or more.
The widespread of recipes of these two dishes has proved TikTok to be a powerful communication channel to promote local specialties. As a result, the product consumption becomes easier. However, it is also necessary to be careful because anything trendy lasts a short time. Therefore, sellers should take advantage of “golden time” to do business in the most effective way.