Before the Coffee Gets Cold: A Heartfelt Novel Exploring Regret, Redemption and Closure From a Magical Café (Before the Coffee Gets Cold Series, 1)

If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet?

In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee—the chance to travel back in time.

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Published Nov 17, 2020

272 pages

Average rating: 6.73

1,364 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

What Bookclubbers are saying about this book

✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI

Readers say *Before the Coffee Gets Cold* is a cozy, heartfelt novel that offers a fresh, gentle take on time travel through a magical café. Many prai...

KelBel
Jan 23, 2025
4/10 stars
4 🌟 I was a bit confused starting this book as I didn't realize it was 4 different interconnected short stories. I think it may have lost a little something in translation. It was repetitive in stating the rules.. Even within a story to the point of being a bit annoying. I did get teary eyed in the 2nd and 4th story. The overall theme of the stories were easy to get, even if the telling of them fell a little flat. I also think the culture difference between the author and myself led to some of the phrasing and tone of passages to just be odd for me.
Lit_With_Alex
Mar 05, 2026
10/10 stars
Before the Coffee Gets Cold is one of those stories that quietly breaks your heart while gently reminding you what matters most. It's emotional, reflective, and deeply human. The concept seems simple — a café where you can travel back in time — but the execution is layered with grief, longing, regret, and the bittersweet reality that even with a second chance, the past cannot be changed.

This book made me cry. It also made me think, remember, and accept. It’s the kind of story that hits harder if you’ve loved and lost, if you’ve carried grief, or if you’ve ever wished for just one more conversation.
Frustrating at times? Yes. But intentionally so — because life is frustrating, and grief even more.
A beautifully written reminder to be present with the people we love.

Andrija Petkeviciute
Mar 04, 2026
6/10 stars
Kinda meh actually. Why you gotta repeat stuff so much? Keep it moving, we get it. So yeah, couldn’t wait to finish it hoping the end would somehow make it all worth it and then it just didn’t.
Hanna Goldfarb
Jan 31, 2026
8/10 stars
super speedy read, i really liked it
the writing style was similar to “the cabinet” which i read this summer
really beautiful subject matter, and i appreciated the way the author addressed a common literary idea (time travel) in a new way
Jenntwinmom
Jan 28, 2026
4/10 stars
My expectations were high and I was definitely disappointed. The storyline is inviting but the writing— which could be due to translation or the idea it was intended as a play first— left much to be desired. It is rare I feel like I wasted time finishing a book, but I do feel that way. I have no intention on reading the other books in this series :/

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