Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Fantasy, Literary Fiction, Science Fiction
Toshikazu Kawaguchi
4.00
Empathy
Joy
Nostalgia
What would you change if you could go back in time? In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time. In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know. But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold.
Reviews & Ratings
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By bookieee_bubble
Tue May 19 2026 23:48:43
5.00
I just purchased the full series started with My love towards Japanese literature is so much that I have so much translated copies but talking about this book omygod I can't beleive so much emotions into a single book different stories different perspectives but the conclusion that we can't change the pas
By debarshit
Sat Feb 28 2026 23:29:35
4.00
By rashmi_ramesh
Sat Jan 10 2026 17:47:27
3.50
No more reviews to show.
By priyalovestoread
Wed May 20 2026 02:01:35
3.50
If you could go back and revisit a moment in your past, would you? If yes, where would you go and to see whom? This is the premise of this novel that's set in a cafe in Japan that's earned a reputation for being able to send back customers who sit in a particular seat to their past.
The time travel is tricky because of a set of rules that need to be followed, including sitting on a particular seat, drinking a special brew of coffee, knowing that the present will not change no matter what and a few others.
Still, a few people who frequent the place take the risk and go back, believing there is something unresolved that will help them despite all the rules.
It's a sweet story and told very simply except for the names that all sound very similar and are difficult to keep track of..Kei,Kazu,Kohtake etc! Also, I wonder if it's the translation but it gets a bit breezy and uses some out of place terms like 'Atta girl!' which don't suit the sombre nature of the narrative.
Overall a pleasant read with a lot of coffee being brewed! One you should read with your cup of coffee!