Before the coffee gets cold | Toshikazu Kawaguchi | Book Review

Introduction

There is a café in Tokyo- Funiculi Funicula, in a small dark alley. A café that is so conspicuous that it is easy to miss. This café has been standing here for almost a decade, but it is not just coffee that attracts customers to this small café but also an old urban legend which states that this café can help time travel to the past. ‘Before the coffee gets cold’ is an account of four individuals who traveled to the past to meet their loved ones.

The café’s interior shines with a sepia glow. Once lamps had illuminated it, but now electric lamps stand in their place. No matter what month of the year it is, here in the café it is always cool. The solitary fan on the ceiling cannot explain this temperature. Three clocks hang on the wall with only the one at the centre showing the right time.

Visitors come and go, some regular and some new, but a seat is occupied by one woman who is almost always there. If you had known more about the café, you would know that the woman is a ghost who did not follow one of the café’s rules and got stuck in this chair forever. It is the only chair that allows you to go back in time and you can only use it when she takes a bathroom break. But again, it’s up to you to believe it or not.

This one-of-a-kind café is owned by a young couple, Nagare and Kei. Kazu, Nagare’s cousin, also helps when she isn’t studying.

The Storyline of ‘Before the coffee gets cold ‘

The story begins with Fumiko, a career-driven woman who wants to go back in time and meet her boyfriend, Goro, who left her to go to America for his dream job. She had just kept quiet and not told him What she felt. She pleaded with the café staff to send her to the past. Disappointment filled her mind when she came to know that the café had several rules to follow.

Firstly, she had to sit only in the chair occupied by the ghost. Second, she could only meet someone who had been to the café before. Third, she could not leave her seat in the past and had to drink the coffee before it gets cold. The last and the most disappointing rule was that, no matter how hard she tried, the past could not change.

Even after all these rules she still wanted to go to the past and was not disheartened like the several others who had also heard about the Urban legend.

There was Mr. Fusagi who would always sit on the first table from the door. He would flip the pages of a travel magazine. No one knew what he searched for but all they knew was that he had early onset Alzheimer’s. His wife, Kohtake, wanted to go to the past and meet a Fusagi who still recognized her to receive a letter that he wanted to give her.

All Kumi wanted was to bring her sister Hirai back to the family home but Hirai kept ignoring her. She hated the idea of running the family business. But when Kumi unexpectedly lost her life, all Hirai wanted was to meet her little sister one last time.

There is also a woman who time-traveled to meet her daughter and it’s best left unsaid who she was and what were her intentions.

Points I liked

It’s a fast-paced book with four heart-touching stories. It makes you ponder on the question, ‘If you could go back in the past, who would you meet?’ It deeply resonates with anyone who is suffering separation from a loved one.

The coffee-pouring ceremony is one of the most pleasant things to read. The aesthetic details of how Kazu brought out a silver kettle, her usual expression that was part of the ceremony, and how the coffee flowed from the kettle to the cup in a single stream like a thread. The steam rose and engulfed the person in the chair and carried them to another world. Why was only Kazu doing this ceremony? We did not know.

The incomplete stories left behind for us to fill in give a mysterious almost mythical appeal to the story.

writing: 4.5/5

Presentation: 4/5

Overall: 4.5/5

Genre: Fantasy/ Fiction