While I don’t make it down to the east end of Bloomfield Avenue very often, it seems every time I have been down in that direction Trend Coffee and Tea House has had a “closed for renovations” sign in the window. With no indication that anything was actually going on inside, I was sure they had closed their doors for good. (In fact their page on Yelp says it has closed.) A friend’s recent Facebook post cued me in to the fact that they had reopened, so I decided to check it out.

My friend Jenna and I recently popped into Trend on a super cold day to warm up with some hot tea. It’s been quite a while since I was inside, and I was happy to see that the back room had been renovated and was now full of comfy sofas and cozy chairs. As a bit of a tea snob, I was happy to see that they had many different types of tea on the menu, and there were actually multiple flavors of chai, such as rooibos masala chai, coconut masala chai and acai mate masala chai. Most placed that serve chai usually have just one flavor and it’s called simply “chai”.

Trend serves standard coffee shop fare such as sandwiches, wraps and salads, and they have a pastry case full of pies, cupcakes, and other sweet treats. There were several vegan desserts in the pastry case including apple pie, baklava and carrot cake bombs, but as far as I can tell there aren’t savory vegan items on their lunch menu, except maybe a salad with cheese omitted. We were told that they're going to be adding more vegan items, so I'm hoping they'll have a few meatless lunch dishes soon.

I ordered a vegan carrot cake bomb and a deliciously warm coconut masala chai with soy milk and settled into a cozy spot on the sofa, happy to be in out of the cold. I’m also happy to know there is a place to enjoy coffee, tea and free wifi in town that’s not a big chain. Because it was so cold out, Trend’s staff was having a difficult time warming the back room up and someone actually brought a space heater over and placed it next to where Jenna and I were sitting. I’ve never received that type of service from a chain!

Trend is located at 411 Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair and is open 7 days a week.