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What would you do if you could go back in 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 in time.

In Before the coffee gets cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’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 early onset Alzheimer’s
– see their sister one last time
– 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 . . .

Translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving Before the coffee gets cold explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

Continue the beautifully moving storytelling with Tales from the Cafe, Before Your Memory Fades, Before We Say Goodbye, Before We Forget Kindness and Before I knew I loved you.

Praise

Heartwarming, whimsical . . . offering comfort at a time when the world seems off-kilter and chaotic
New York Times

A moving meditation on second chances
iNews

The perfect accompaniment for your dreary commute
Independent

Wonderful introspective examination of grief and regret
Popculturebandit.com

This wondrous tale…an affecting, deeply immersive journey
Publishers Weekly