☕ Before the Coffee Gets Cold Review ⭐⭐⭐½: Would You Go Back If Nothing Could Change?
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi had me thinking about a question I genuinely don't know how to answer:
If you could go back in time, but you knew you couldn't change the outcome, would you still go?
Who would you see? What moment would you choose? What would you say? Would getting one more conversation be worth having to say goodbye all over again?
For a book I only gave 3.5 stars, it sure gave me a lot to think about. 😂
The premise is fascinating, the emotional moments absolutely got to me, and I loved the message behind it. But it's also slow, repetitive at times, and has enough time-travel rules to make you wonder whether you need to sign a waiver before sitting down.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐½ / 5
⚠️ Trigger Warnings
Death and grief
Death of a sibling
Car accident
Alzheimer's disease and memory loss
Serious illness
Pregnancy complications
Maternal death
Loss of a parent
☕ Before the Coffee Gets Cold Review
Funiculi Funicula is a tiny basement café in Tokyo where customers can supposedly travel through time.
Sounds simple.
It is not. 😂
There are SO MANY RULES.
You can only interact with people who have visited the café. You must sit in one specific chair. You can't leave that chair for any reason. Nothing you do in the past can change the present. And you have to finish your coffee before it gets cold.
Oh, and the magical chair is occupied by a ghost woman who sits there reading a book all day. She only gets up once a day to go to the bathroom, which is apparently your big time-travel opportunity.
I actually found some of this funny and interesting. The problem was that there was just so much explanation of the rules. After a while, it started to feel like filler.
The book is already fairly slow, so the repeated explanations didn't help.
But the central idea?
I loved it.
Because if you can't change anything, what's the point of going back?
And that's really what this book is about.
🤔 Would I Go Back?
This was easily my favorite part of Before the Coffee Gets Cold: not necessarily what happened in the book, but everything it made me think about afterward.
If I could sit in that chair, where would I go?
Who would I want to see?
Would I revisit a happy moment just to experience it one more time? Would I choose someone I lost? Would I apologize for something? Ask a question I never asked? Say something I should have said?
And if I knew that person would still leave or die afterward, would seeing them again actually help?
I think I would go.
But I'm not sure where.
And the fact that I'm still thinking about that is probably the best compliment I can give this book. ❤️
🚨 Before the Coffee Gets Cold Full Plot Summary & Ending
FULL SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT!
The novel consists of four interconnected stories, each involving someone who uses Funiculi Funicula's mysterious chair to travel through time.
💔 The Lovers
Fumiko Kiyokawa regrets the way she reacted when her boyfriend, Goro Katada, told her he was leaving Japan for a job in America. Too proud to admit that she wanted him to stay, she let him go.
After learning about the café, Fumiko decides to return to their final conversation and convince him not to leave.
Unfortunately, she quickly discovers the biggest rule of Funiculi Funicula:
Nothing you do in the past can change the present.
Goro will still leave.
Fumiko decides to go anyway.
When she speaks with Goro again, she learns that he was insecure about their relationship and believed someone as successful and attractive as Fumiko would eventually leave him.
Before her coffee gets cold, Goro asks her to wait three years for him.
Fumiko returns to an unchanged present, but now she knows how Goro really feels.
💌 Husband and Wife
Kohtake is a nurse whose husband, Fusagi, has Alzheimer's disease and no longer remembers that she is his wife.
Before his memory deteriorated, Fusagi had intended to give Kohtake a letter. She travels back in time so she can finally receive it.
The letter reveals that Fusagi already knew what was happening to him. He understood that his disease would eventually cause him to forget Kohtake, and he didn't want her to feel obligated to spend her life caring for him.
He gives her permission to leave.
Instead, the letter reminds Kohtake that she doesn't simply want to be Fusagi's caretaker.
She wants to be his wife.
She returns to the present knowing his Alzheimer's hasn't changed, but her perspective has.
😭 The Sisters
Café regular Hirai left her family and their traditional inn behind to create an independent life in Tokyo.
Her younger sister, Kumi, stayed home and took on the responsibilities Hirai rejected. Kumi repeatedly tries to reconnect with Hirai, but Hirai avoids her—even when Kumi comes to the café specifically to see her.
Then Kumi is killed in a car accident on her way home.
Overwhelmed with guilt, Hirai travels into the past to see her sister.
She expects Kumi to be angry with her. Instead, she discovers that Kumi simply wants her sister back in her life and dreams of the two of them running the family inn together someday.
Hirai promises Kumi that she will return home.
She can't prevent the accident. She can't save her sister.
But after returning to the present, Hirai keeps her promise, goes home, and reconciles with her parents.
👩🍼 Mother and Child
The final story follows Kei, the wife of café owner Nagare.
Kei has a serious heart condition and is pregnant despite doctors warning that continuing the pregnancy could cost her life.
Knowing she might never get to watch her child grow up, Kei decides to use the café's time travel differently.
Instead of traveling into the past, she travels into the future.
Kei intends to travel ten years ahead but accidentally arrives fifteen years into the future, where she encounters a teenage girl named Miki.
Miki is her daughter.
Kei learns that she did not survive to raise her, but Miki reassures her that she has had a happy life and has been surrounded by people who love her.
Most importantly, Miki tells Kei that she is grateful her mother chose to give her life.
Kei returns to the present knowing what the future holds.
The following spring, she gives birth to a healthy baby girl named Miki.
Kei does not survive to raise her.
😭 Before the Coffee Gets Cold Ending Explained
By the end, the café's most frustrating rule becomes the entire point.
Nobody changes anything.
Fumiko can't stop Goro from leaving. Kohtake can't cure Fusagi. Hirai can't save Kumi. Kei can't survive to raise Miki.
But every person who sits in that chair comes back changed themselves.
And suddenly I understood why anyone would bother traveling through time when they couldn't change the outcome.
Maybe sometimes we don't need to change what happened.
Maybe we just wish we could understand it differently, say the thing we never said, hear the thing someone never told us, or have one more moment with someone we love.
Yeah.
That got me. 😭
🐌 What Didn't Work for Me
As emotional as this book was, I can't ignore that I found it slow.
There was a lot of repetition, particularly surrounding the time-travel rules. I understand that the rules are important, but by the end I felt thoroughly qualified to train the next employee at Funiculi Funicula.
Chair. Coffee. Don't move. Don't let it get cold. Ghost takes bathroom break. GOT IT. 😂
The book was originally adapted from Kawaguchi's stage play, and knowing that actually explains a lot. The limited setting, heavy dialogue, and exposition sometimes feel more like something written for the stage than a traditional novel.
I loved the individual stories, but I wish the book had moved through them a little faster.
❤️ Final Thoughts
Before the Coffee Gets Cold is one of those books where I liked the idea and emotional impact more than the actual reading experience.
It was slow. Some of the explanations felt like filler. And I definitely didn't need quite that many reminders about how the time travel worked.
But the underlying question stuck with me:
If you could go back one more time—even knowing you couldn't change a thing—would you?
I think I would.
I just don't know where I'd go, who I'd see, or what I'd say.
And maybe that's why this book worked for me despite its flaws. It made me think about grief, regret, love, memory, and all the things we assume we'll have another chance to say.
It's definitely an interesting book with an interesting premise. Could it have been better? Absolutely.
But since Before the Coffee Gets Cold is the first book in a series, I'm curious enough that I might grab the next one and see what happens.
Hopefully everyone remembers the rules this time so we don't have to go over them again. 😂☕
Final Rating: ⭐⭐⭐½ / 5
📚 Books Like Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Tales from the Café — Toshikazu Kawaguchi
The Miracles of the Namiya General Store — Keigo Higashino
What You Are Looking for Is in the Library — Michiko Aoyama
Sweet Bean Paste — Durian Sukegawa
The Full Moon Coffee Shop — Mai Mochizuki
☕ Would you go back in time if you knew you couldn't change what happened? And if you would… who would you want to see?
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