The Book to Read ‘Before The Coffee Gets Cold’
And how it can change your view on life
People who would enjoy this book
Everyone who ever wanted to go back in time to do something differently. Who likes a character-driven story. And doesn’t mind a writing style heavily influenced by theatre.
The storyline
The novel Before the coffee gets cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi is a story about a back-alley café in Tokyo. A place where one can travel back in time.
Before the coffee gets cold revolves around the question: Who would you want to meet if you could go back in time? Staying there only for the time it takes to drink of a cup of coffee. Before it gets cold. The getting cold a symbol for the transience of life itself. The warmth in the liquid as fleeting as the life we live on this earth.
The story takes place solely in the Café Funiculi Funicula located in Tokyo, Japan. Opened in 1847, it has been serving coffee to its customers ever since. We follow four of the regulars over the course of one summer. As they are trying to find solace in travelling through time and talk to their loved ones once more. Despite the many, annoying rules which apply to those journeys.
Because as there are rules to living, there are rules to travel in time as well. So let me introduce you to them.
The three main rules to time travelling
1.The present can’t change
The most annoying rules of them all. To say it in the words of Hirai, one of the café regulars:
What was the point anyway, she thought, if the rules meant that you couldn’t change the present, no matter how hard you tried? — Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Wouldn’t that be the point. To go back. Talk. Do something you didn’t do before. And have a completely different life to come back to.
It seems to be a common concept in time travelling fiction however. That you can’t do anything, which will change the present. It’s too risky. You could wipe yourself out of existence after all. By changing one seemingly tiny thing. Then that would be it. You would cease to exist. Would never have existed in the first place.
Now, wouldn’t that be the scariest of all. To not know, if there still was a life, you could return to.
2. Stay in the seat
Having a designated seat for time travelling could be called customer service. As it prevents travellers to fall into a past customer’s lap.
It is however the mental picture of staying in one place. Throughout the whole visit in the past. What this rule seems to be about. Reminding the time traveler to reside within themselves. Taking on the role of a mere visitor. To their own past. And then go back to their present life again.
3. There’s a time limit
Your time in the past will begin from the time the coffee is poured (…) And you must return before the coffee goes cold. — Toshikazu Kawaguchi
We first come across the limitation of time, when reading the title of the book. Before knowing anything else. We know the time is limited. It is also one of the things which gets repeated countless times throughout the story. Reminding us again and again how important it is to drink the coffee before it gets cold. And even though it could have been brought about more elegantly. I think it’s an amazing analogy. To the transience of life. And the inevitability of death thereafter. Or rather. The imminence of death.
The takeaway message
The most inherent rule to life is that it will end. Before we know anything else. We know our time on this earth is limited. Without knowing how long that will be. We have no control over that. But we can make decisions every day. To put in the work to maintain a relationship. Do the thing we wanted to do for such a long time. Or connect with our family.
Time after all is not a thing we have. It’s something we make. For the things that are important to us.
That’s what this book is about. And even though it’s a bit overdramatised in some scenes. It certainly does its job well.
Bringing us to think about who we would want to meet. How that meeting could help shift our perspective. And ultimately change our hearts.
