Hidden Grounds Chai & Coffee House

Hidden Grounds Chai & Coffee House in Williamsburg is the Brooklyn outpost of a chai-and-coffee chain whose Jersey City regulars will tell you the original is better. Worth knowing going in. The room is cute and kitschy with dried flowers and family photos, a tablet ordering option alongside the barista at the counter, and staff who have been known to let customers lay down a prayer mat when asked, which is the kind of small accommodation that says something about how the place treats people. The chai menu runs through Masala, Rose, Cardamom, and a Lavender brew, alongside a New Orleans Cold Brew and Indian-inspired pastries: a Blueberry Gulab Jamun Donut, a banana bread loaf, an onion tart that's worth ordering on its own. There are fifteen to twenty indoor seats plus sidewalk tables, and the tables for laptops are small and sometimes wobbly, which sets a real limit on the working day if you came planning a four-hour session. A recent visit reported a twenty-minute wait for a pour-over that never arrived, which is the kind of service complaint that lands harder when a serious pour-over is what you came for. Order the Masala Chai, a Rose Chai, a Cardamom Chai, the Lavender brew, the New Orleans Cold Brew, a brown sugar cold brew, the Filter Coffee, an India Ratnagiri pour-over if the bar is slow and you have patience, the Blueberry Gulab Jamun Donut, the banana bread loaf, the onion tart. Chai drinkers wanting variety and laptop workers willing to grab a small wobbly table early in the morning are the right audience here, and dog owners get treats at the door on the way in. Skip the pour-over on a busy afternoon. The chai is what the shop is built around, and the chai is what they get right consistently across every visit. The kitschy interior is part of the appeal, the prayer mat detail is worth noting because it tells you what kind of staff is on the floor, and the honest comparison to the Jersey City original is the baseline you should arrive with so you're not disappointed by the Brooklyn version trying to match a different room.