Book Review: Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Read time: 3 minutes

What’s This Book About?

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.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

Let’s Talk About This Book

The story was originally written in Japanese and carries a unique cultural rhythm. The premise is poetic. A chance to go back or forward in time just briefly (before the coffee gets cold), to say something unsaid or see someone for one last time. It is a beautiful idea that will resonate with most readers.

That said, I’ll be honest, I struggled with this one. The translation made the prose feel stilted and disconnected at times. The rhythm of the language didn’t always flow naturally, and it pulled me out of the story more than once. In fact, I had to try listening to the this book twice before I was able to finish it. My personal tendency towards clarity and polished writing made it hard for me to stay engaged.

However, I am glad I pushed through those hurdles because the emotional payoff was worth it. If you can look past the language quirks, and focus on Arina Li’s narration (the audiobook narrator) the stories do find a way to resonate.

This book contains four interconnected stories. Each story explores a different kind of relationship. These include a pair of almost star-crossed lovers, a husband and wife, two estranged sisters, and a mother and her unborn daughter. All of these stories are deeply emotional, and they gently pull you into moments of joy, grief, longing, and peace.

A quietly powerful book that stays with you after the last cup is poured.

Would I Recommend It?

I would recommend this book only to readers who can overlook the language and grammar issues that do exist. If you are drawn to unique concept and emotional depth, and you are OK forgiving awkward phrasing or clunky dialogues, this may be worth your time.

If translation issues tend to bother you, or you find it hard to stay engaged with disjointed prose, you might want to skip it. In the end, the core idea does stay with you and you would be tempted to go to the next book.

What did you think?

Have you read Before the Coffee Gets Cold or one of its sequels? Did a particular story stay with you? I’d love to know which moment meant the most to you. Drop in your thoughts below!

Where to find the book

Purchase Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi on Kobo
View Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi on Goodreads