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

By Toshikazu Kawaguchi

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

1,468 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 gently explores time travel through a magical café, touching on grief, longi...

CeLynasings
May 09, 2026
8/10 stars
This was an interesting concept. I did love the background information of the coffee culture in Japan. For me the book was a little slow, but I would recommend it to those who have ever needed the closure of moments missed.
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.
Kitu
Jul 13, 2026
7/10 stars
It's nice and interesting.
@chapterandcoffee
Jun 02, 2026
10/10 stars
This book really touched my heart.
julireads
May 31, 2026
10/10 stars
Fiction Literary Magical realism

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