page_title: Cendol
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Cendol / History
caption_attribution_description: Bahasa Indonesia: Penjual dawet pikulan di suatu pasar di Malang, Jawa Timur Nederlands: Foto. Een dawet verkoper op de pasar te Malang, Oost-Java.
context_page_description: Cendol is an iced sweet dessert that contains droplets of green rice flour jelly, coconut milk and palm sugar syrup. It is commonly found in Southeast Asia and is popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, and Myanmar. Next to the green jelly, additional toppings might be added, including diced jackfruit, sweetened red azuki beans, or durian.
context_section_description: The origin of cendol is not clear, and this sweet drink is widely spread across Southeast Asia. However, one suggestion is that cendol originated in Java, Indonesia as dawet.  The Javanese name of "dawet" was recorded in early 19th century Javanese manuscript of Serat Centhini, composed between 1814 and 1823 in Surakarta, Central Java. An Indonesian academic suggests that a dawet sweet drink may have been recorded in the Kresnayana manuscript, dated from Kediri Kingdom circa 12th century Java. In Java, dawet refer to the whole concoction of cendol green jellies, usually made from aren sagoo or rice flour, coconut milk and liquid gula jawa (palm sugar syrup). An Indonesian historian argues that sagoo or rice flour might have been used as sweet beverage ingredient in the rice agriculture society of ancient Java. Indeed, cendol jellies and its variations are rural agricultural product, still traditionally produced in Javanese villages. In Banjarnegara, Central Java, dawet is traditionally served without ice. Today, however additional ice cubes or shaved ice is commonly added into this dessert drink. 
  Cendol, however, has developed differently in different countries.  In Indonesia, cendol only refers to the green "pandan jelly served in coconut milk", where sometimes pandanus leaves or pieces of jackfruit may be added. This is different to the cendol in Malaysia and Singapore where various ingredients such as sweetened red beans and sweet corn may be mixed in like an es campur.
  Cendol is typically served with ice, and this may have developed when ice became readily available. It may have originated in Malayan port cities such as Malacca and Penang where British refrigerated ships' technology would provide the required ice.
  In Javanese tradition, dawet or cendol is a part of traditional Javanese wedding ceremony. The dodol dawet (Javanese for "selling dawet") is performed during Midodareni ceremony, a day before the wedding. After the siraman bridal shower, the parents would sell dawet to the attending guests and relatives. The guest paid the dawet using terracotta coins that would be given to the bride as a symbol of family earnings. The symbolic meaning was as the parents' hope that the tomorrow wedding would be attended by a lot of guests, "as plenty as the cendol jellies that being sold." In Dutch East Indies Java, dawet street hawkers using pikulan (baskets carried with balancing rod) are commonly found in Javanese cities, as can be seen in the old photograph dated from circa 1935.
  Cendol has been declared a Malaysian heritage food by the Malaysian Department of National Heritage.
caption: A dawet seller with his jars of ingredients, at a market in Malang, East Java (ca.1935)
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