Before the Coffee Gets Cold

If you could go back, who would you want to meet? In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which 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. Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the cafe in the hopes of making that journey. But tiem travel isn't so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can take only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story – translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot – explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time?

Published in 2015, Before the Coffee Gets Cold reflects contemporary themes and storytelling that resonates with today's readers.

It sits at the crossroads of Magical Realism, Fiction, and Fantasy, making it appealing to readers with varied tastes who enjoy stories that defy easy classification.

Available on Bookble for readers looking to explore Toshikazu Kawaguchi's work and build a focused reading list.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi's other works may not be in the current Bookble catalog yet, but the genre shelves below offer strong alternatives.

Within Magical Realism, readers who liked Before the Coffee Gets Cold often gravitate toward Piranesi, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, and One Hundred Years of Solitude — each sharing thematic DNA while offering a different perspective.