Reading Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold reminded me of those early days of discovering Haruki Murakami when Japanese fiction first revealed its different style for building atmosphere rather than relying on surprising plot-twists. Like Murakami, Kawaguchi crafts a world where the characters exists alongside the mundane, where emotional truth matters more than logic, and where the real journey is found on each character's realization.
Where Murakami leans toward surrealism, existential drift, and metaphysical loneliness, Kawaguchi threads the simpler ground. He creates a world that is smaller, almost domestic – in the case for this book. The café replaces the dreamscape; regret replaces alienation. Both writers, however, share a focus for mood, memory, and the unspoken weight of human relationships.
Set in a small Tokyo café rumored to offer a chance to travel through time, Before the Coffee Gets Cold explores what happens when people are briefly allowed to revisit moments they wish they could change. Bound by a strict set of rules and the certainty of returning to the present, visitors must confront any regret and unfinished emotions. What unfolds is not a science fiction story about time travel itself, but about what it means to be human within it.
At the heart of the novel are its characters: ordinary people portrayed for readers to easily relate to, Fumiko, career-driven yet vulnerable woman longing for closure with his ex-boyfriend Goro. Kotake, a caring nurse who carries a lifetime of unspoken devotion to her Alzheimer stricken husband Fusagi. (Yaeko) Hirai, a café regular with a rebellious streak but has a soft spot for her younger sister (Kumi). The cafe owners Nagare and Kei whose own storyline tugs at the heartstrings, especially bout Kei's reason for traveling through time.
And Kazu, the café’s steady presence, offers calm authority without ever overshadowing the stories going on around her. Each character feels less like a narrative device and more like someone you might have once known or been.
What makes these characters easy to relate to is not about their transformation, but their acceptance. Kawaguchi doesn’t force dramatic reversals. Instead, he allows small emotional shifts to do the heavy lifting: a change in perspective, a softened resentment, a moment of understanding that arrives too late and, somehow, just in time.
This is also what distinguishes Kawaguchi’s take on time travel. Reading Before the Coffee Gets Cold changed my own long-held view of the genre. I once thought of time travel as a fantasy of revising the past, therefore risking the present, or a gamble on a better outcome. Kawaguchi reframes it more elegantly: time travel here is not about changing what happened, but about changing how we carry on forward. The past remains intact; the present undisturbed. What alters is the future shaped by clarity rather than regret.
The novel is the first in a trilogy, and its structure reflects that larger arc. Each story stands alone yet contributes to a broader reflection on memory, choice, and emotional inheritance. There’s a confidence in how Kawaguchi trusts readers to read with uncertainty, to find significance without explanation.
I’m glad I discovered this book last year, even more so that I found the time to read it now. As the one that kickstarted my one-book-per-week resolution for 2026, it feels almost ceremonial like a reminder that some stories arrive exactly when they’re meant to.
Like a cup of coffee that must be finished before it cools, this novel asks only one thing of its reader: presence. And in return, it offers something rare; comfort without sentimentality, magic without escape, and a blend of feelings that stays long after the last page.
Rating: ★★★
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