Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Toshikazu Kawaguchi

In a quiet Tokyo alley lies a peculiar café where patrons can travel back in time. However, this journey is bound by strict rules: you must sit in a specific chair, drink the coffee before it gets cold, and crucially, return to your present before the temporal magic fades. This enchanting novel follows four women who choose to revisit moments in their past, seeking to mend broken hearts, understand lost connections, or simply say goodbye.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi

In a quiet corner of the city, a mysterious café offers more than coffee—it provides a chance to revisit pivotal moments and reconsider the choices that shaped a life. Through a series of interconnected encounters, customers arrive with regrets, hopes, and unfinished conversations, and each visit unfolds into a gentle, thought-provoking journey toward understanding. Blending warmth with subtle wonder, the stories explore themes of memory, second chances, human connection, and the quiet power of listening. With Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s signature blend of lyrical simplicity and emotional depth, these tales feel both intimate and universal—inviting readers to reflect on what they would change, and what they might learn, if time were ever kinder.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi

At Cafe Donna Donna, perched above Hakodate harbor, visitors are offered a rare chance to return to the past—but only under strict, unchangeable rules. In this third installment of the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, four new guests seek comfort, closure, or a final chance to express what has been left unsaid, alongside familiar faces from earlier stories. Their journeys explore grief, regret, family, friendship, and the enduring power of love. With his signature warmth and wistful simplicity, Toshikazu Kawaguchi asks what we might do differently if we could revisit a single moment, even when the future remains beyond our reach.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi

At Café Funiculi Funicula, a cup of coffee offers visitors the extraordinary chance to revisit a moment from the past—but only if they follow the café’s strict rules. In this latest collection of interconnected stories, four new guests seek the words, farewells, and answers they were unable to give in the present. With tenderness and quiet poignancy, the novel explores love, grief, regret, family, and the enduring power of human connection. Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s wistful, gently magical storytelling offers a moving meditation on what it means to say goodbye—and what may still be changed by the chance to speak.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi

In a quiet Tokyo café, patrons discover a peculiar coffee shop where time travel is not only possible but also a poignant, bittersweet experience. Customers can journey back to moments they regret or wish to revisit, but with a strict rule: they must return before their coffee gets cold. This enchanting tale explores the enduring power of human connection, the weight of unspoken words, and the profound beauty found in cherishing the present.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi

In a fabled Tokyo café where time folds on itself, four new visitors are given the chance to revisit moments shaped by love, regret, and uncertainty. One woman longs to apologize to her stepmother after her death, while another seeks reassurance about whether the person she loves will remain in her life. Across four moving stories, the café becomes a place where grief and memory meet, offering its guests a tender way to confront what was left unsaid. Blending cozy magical realism with profound emotional insight, this poignant novel explores forgiveness, family, enduring love, and the fragile boundaries between past and future.