Jishiteng Balls in Coconut Milk 椰奶鸡屎藤
Jishiteng Balls in Coconut Milk is featured among the local specialties of Hainan.
Jishiteng Balls in Coconut Milk (椰奶鸡屎藤) is a Hainan (海南) sweet soup of small hand-rolled balls made from the ground leaves of the jishiteng (鸡屎藤) vine, served in coconut milk. The balls, called jishiteng guozai (鸡屎藤粿仔), are a classic of Hainan's sweet soups.
How it is made
The leaves are picked on the hills and carefully sorted, with weeds removed and the leaves folded. They are ground to a powder, mixed with water and kneaded into a dough, and the dough is rolled by hand into small balls. Hainan News (南海网) names brown-sugar water, coconut milk and fermented rice (酒糟) as the classic bases for the balls, with red dates, goji berries and motherwort (益母草) added as finishing touches. This version uses the coconut milk base.
Flavour
The name translates literally as 'chicken-droppings vine', but Hainan News notes that the plant has no odd smell and is instead clean and fragrant. There is no chicken in the bowl. Hainan News describes the sweet soup as served steaming hot.
Where it comes from
In Hainan the vine is regarded as a 'local ginseng', credited with clearing heat and toxins, which Hainan News links to the island's year-round hot and humid climate. The common jishiteng dessert means the jishiteng guozai, and it can be found in every city and county on the island.
In 2012, after recommendations from city and county authorities, public voting and review by industry associations and master chefs, Hainan named its ten famous dishes and ten famous snacks. The Hainan provincial government portal lists jishiteng guozai among the ten snacks, alongside Hainan fen (海南粉) and Baoluo rice noodles (抱罗粉).
Questions before you order
Does Jishiteng Balls in Coconut Milk contain chicken?
No. Jishiteng is a vine; its ground leaves are made into the balls, which are served in coconut milk.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.