Before the Coffee Gets Cold: The heart-warming million-copy sensation from Japan
As seen:
By Toshikazu Kawaguchi, and and, Geoffrey Trousselot
avg rating
1 review
The million-copy bestselling series about a small Japanese cafe that offers its visitors the chance to travel back in time.
Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s moving Before the Coffee Gets Cold, translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, explores the age-old question: what would you do if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a cafe 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 cafe’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 Alzheimer’s, see their sister one last time, and 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 cafe, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .
Continue the beautiful storytelling with Tales from the Cafe, Before Your Memory Fades, and Before We Say Goodbye.
Pre-order Book 5, Before We Forget Kindness, now!
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On a less than seasonal first day of August , 17 of us met to discuss our July reads Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s “Before the coffee gets cold” (Japan) and Niccolo Ammanati’s “I’m not scared” ( Italy)
Our Hythe Book Group read this in July 2023. A summary of our discussion:-
Originally written as a play set in a coffee shop in Tokyo. 4 separate stories/scenes - enjoyed the last one the most as had the most interesting characters. . Theme of accepting that one cannot change the past or indeed the future?
Loved the detailed descriptions of the coffee ceremony - perhaps surprising as I would have expected with Japanese culture it might have been tea. . Enjoyed the spiritual aspects of it Really made me stop and think, as we all probably did when reading it, as to whether we would want to go back or indeed forward in time and change things if we could? Certainly wouldn't want to know what the future holds. Very thought provoking.
Loved it and have ordered the others in the series and a 4th is coming out. Gripped by each individual story. Emotive and character sensitive.
Found some of it a bit difficult to follow at first - the names. Found it rather repetitious. Dialogue heavy so it did seem best suited to being a play rather than a novel. Didn't hold my attention.
Gave up with it.
Stilted. Hard to get into. Bad translation perhaps? Hackneyed themes.
Liked the premise - normally would never read anything involving the magical or time travel but very realistic and matter of fact tone so was drawn in and willing to go along with it and suspend disbelief.
Rules were a bit repetitious. Protracted in places.
Themes of making amends, deference. Mis-communications, missed opportunities, misunderstandings etc Hindsight.
Lump in my throat at times. Some powerful beautiful stories especially the one featuring the alzheimer's and the letter to his wife.
The boyfriend/girlfriend strand was the weakest narrative.
So a mixed response with the book electing strong opinions - some loved it and some hated it. Scores range unsurprisingly therefore from 4 to 10! Total of 91 so an average score of 6.5
