THE odd whitish spheres resting in a tray of ice outside a bodega on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn were strange enough to make passers-by do a double take.

Strolling down the Williamsburg street, Martin Mancusi, 30, a tourist from Barcelona, Spain, and his friend Alejandro Kaed, 33, stopped to examine the items: young peeled coconuts, waiting to be pierced by a straw and sipped tiki-style by someone young and fashionable, as they have been all summer.

Like banh mi sandwiches and sriracha chili sauce, the young coconut and its juice is the latest formerly humble food to be discovered by New York City’s style set, and elevated  if not quite to the level of a status symbol  at least to that of a prized accessory.

In the last few months, retailers in hipster hot spots like Williamsburg and the Lower East Side say they have sold unprecedented amounts of the fruit for streetside consumption.