Before the Coffee Gets Cold series is a collection of books by Japanese playwright and author Toshikazu Kawaguchi.
Set in a small Tokyo café, the stories revolve around a mystical chair that allows its occupants to travel back in time, but with one crucial condition: they must return before their coffee gets cold. Each book in the series follows four new characters.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold series is an international bestseller with over one million copies sold.
This is the complete list of Before The Coffee Gets Cold Series in order.
Before The Coffee Gets Cold Series in Order
Before the Coffee Gets Cold
In a small back alley of Tokyo, there’s a legendary café known for its century-old tradition of serving carefully brewed coffee. However for over one hundred years local legend says the shop offers something more than coffee. Rumours circulate that this café possesses an extraordinary offering—the opportunity to travel back in time.
Throughout one summer, four individuals venture Café Funiculi Funicula, each longing for a chance at this remarkable journey. However, time travel is not as straightforward as it seems, and strict rules govern the process. The most important rule is the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.
What would you change if you could travel back in time?
Click here to read my Before The Coffee Gets Cold review.
Tales from the Cafe
With faces both familiar and new, the book follows four patrons who visit to take advantage of the cafe’s time-travelling offer and revisit moments with family, friends and lovers.
Each one must face up to the past to move on with their lives.
- The man who goes back to see his best friend who died 22 years ago
- The son who was unable to attend his own mother’s funeral
- The man who travelled to see the girl who he could not marry
- The old detective who never gave his wife that gift.
This beautiful, simple tale tells the story of people who must face up to their past, in order to move on with their lives.
Before Your Memory Fades
On the hillside of Mount Hakodate in northern Japan, Cafe Donna Donna is fabled for its dazzling views of Hakodate port. But that’s not all. Like the charming Tokyo cafe Funiculi Funicula, Cafe Donna Donna offers its customers the extraordinary experience of travelling through time.
This is another story of four new customers, each of whom is hoping to take advantage of the cafe’s time-travelling offer. Among some familiar faces from Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s previous novels, readers will also be introduced to:
- A daughter who begrudges her deceased parents for leaving her orphaned
- A comedian who aches for his beloved and their shared dreams
- A younger sister whose grief has become all-consuming
- A young man who realises his love for his childhood friend too late.
Before We Say Goodbye
The regulars at Café Funiculi Funicula are well acquainted with the whimsical ability it grants them to take a trip into the past—as well as the strict rules involved, including that each traveller must return to the present in the time it takes for their coffee to get cold.
In Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s previous novels, patrons have been reunited with old flames, made amends with estranged family and visited loved ones. Now readers will once again be introduced to a new set of visitors.
- The Husband with Something Important Left to Say
- The Woman Who Couldn’t Bid Her Dog Farewell
- The Woman Who Couldn’t Answer a Proposal
- The Daughter Who Drove Her Father Away
Before We Forget Kindness
In the fifth book in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series the mysterious café where customers arrive hoping to travel back in time welcomes four new guests:
– The father who could not allow his daughter to get married
– A woman who couldn’t give Valentine’s Day chocolates to her loved one
– A boy who wants to show his smile to his divorced parents
– A wife holding a child with no name . . .
They must follow the café’s strict rules, however, and come back to the present before their coffee goes cold. Another moving and heartwarming tale from Toshikazu Kawaguchi, in Before we forget kindness our new visitors wish to go back into their past to move on their present, finding closure and comfort so they can embark on a beautiful future.