Before the Coffee Gets Cold
by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
read by Arina Li
Harlequin Audio, 2020. 6 hours, 53 minutes.
Review written November 11, 2025, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
I placed a hold on Before the Coffee Gets Cold after I read and loved What You Are Looking For Is in the Library, by Michiko Aoyama, and many blurbs about the book compared it to Before the Coffee Gets Cold.
And yes, it’s a good comparison. Both books are set in Tokyo and are international bestsellers translated from Japanese. Both tell stories of separate people whose lives are changed after they visit a particular place. Both have a touch of magic – this one a much stronger thread, enough that I’m going to call it science fiction. Of course I enjoyed What You Are Looking For Is in the Library more because the magical place is a library – but I enjoyed this book, too.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold is a time travel story. Normally, I’m not the audience for time travel stories. (Though because I only review books I like, my readers might not realize there are plenty of time travel stories I’ve decided not to review.) But I like the way the time travel in this book came with rules that did away with any nasty paradoxes or feelings of “that wouldn’t happen that way.” (Okay, there’s one exception to that, which I’ll list at the end. But it didn’t nag at me like in some books.)
The setting is a café where visitors can time travel. But the rules are many. Nothing they do in the past will change the present. They can only time travel in one particular seat. And they can’t leave that seat while they are time traveling. So of course they can only talk with people who are also in the café at the time they travel to. And perhaps most crucial – the time travel begins when a particular cup of coffee is poured – and they have to drink the entire cup – and finish before the coffee gets cold.
The rules make the story more fun. And no real explanation is given, despite what the first featured visitor wants. That’s simply the way the time travel works. By not trying to explain it and by making the rules somewhat inconvenient – it’s easier for the reader not to question how it works.
The book features four time travelers. First is a young woman who wants to revisit the conversation in the café when her boyfriend told her he was moving to America. Then comes a wife whose husband is inflicted with Alzheimer’s and has forgotten who she is. We’ve got a sister who wants to see her sister one last time, and a woman who wants to reassure herself that her daughter will be okay.
Along the way, we get to know the owner and workers in the café and its regular visitors, including the ghost of a woman who time traveled too long, and her coffee got cold.
Oh, and what’s the one little nagging question? When somebody goes back in time to a time when they know the person they want to talk to was in the café – where did their own past self go? (Maybe I missed the part where they made sure it was before or after they themselves were there, but I wasn’t super clear on how that part worked.) The story was done well enough, I didn’t really think about that until after the encounter, though.
It’s one of those charming feel-good books, and I just learned that so far there are four sequels, though unfortunately the library doesn’t own the audiobook versions. But I do like all that can be done within those simple time-traveling rules, and how much it can reflect on life, relationships, and interactions.
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/before_the_coffee_gets_cold.html
Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.
Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.
Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.
Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?