There is something about August that makes us more aware of time.
The mornings are still warm. The evenings still stretch into golden light. There are still books waiting to be read outside, coffees to be lingered over, places to swim, people to see, and ordinary summer days that somehow feel as though they should last forever.
And yet, somewhere beneath all of it, we know.
Summer is already beginning to move towards its ending.
Perhaps that is why Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi feels like such a fitting Slow Mornings Club book for August.
It is a novel about time travel, but not really about changing the past.
It is about the conversations we postpone. The moments we misunderstand while we’re living them. The people we assume will always be there. The words we wish we had said differently — or simply said at all.
And hidden inside a tiny café in Tokyo is a question that feels especially poignant as another summer slowly begins to slip through our fingers:
If you could return to one moment in your life, knowing you couldn’t change what happened… would you still go?
The answer might tell us something important about how we should be living now.
Written by Japanese author Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold is the first novel in the internationally bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold series.
The story takes place almost entirely inside a small, tucked-away café in Tokyo called Funiculi Funicula.
At first glance, there is nothing particularly extraordinary about it.
Coffee is poured. People sit and talk. Regular customers come and go.
But the café holds a secret.
There is one particular seat from which it is possible to travel back in time.
Of course, there are rules.
You cannot leave the café. You can only meet someone who has visited the café before. Nothing you do in the past will change the present.
And perhaps most importantly:
You must return before your coffee gets cold.
Through four interconnected stories, Kawaguchi explores love, loss, regret, memory and the complicated ways we connect with the people who matter to us.
It is a simple premise carrying surprisingly large questions.
Because if going back cannot change what happened…
why would anyone choose to return at all?
August often carries two feelings at once.
There is still so much summer left to enjoy — and suddenly, not quite enough.
We begin noticing the shortening evenings. The holidays we haven’t taken. The books we haven’t finished. The plans we confidently said we’d make “sometime this summer.”
And without realizing it, we can turn the final weeks of summer into another race against time.
One more trip.
One more dinner.
One more beach day.
One more sunset.
One more thing to fit in before September arrives.
But Before the Coffee Gets Cold offers us a different way of thinking about time.
The people who enter Funiculi Funicula cannot create more of it. They cannot rewrite their lives or undo their mistakes.
What they can do is experience a moment differently.
Listen differently.
Speak differently.
Notice something they missed the first time.
And perhaps that is exactly the reminder we need in August.
We don’t have to make summer last forever.
We only have to be here while it is happening.
Five Slow Living Lessons from Before the Coffee Gets Cold
1. Being present may matter more than having more time
We often imagine that the answer is more.
More hours in the day. A longer holiday. Another weekend. Another summer.
But more time does not automatically create more presence.
You can spend an entire afternoon with someone while thinking about tomorrow. You can drink your morning coffee while answering emails. You can watch a beautiful sunset through the screen of your phone without ever really looking at the sky.
The novel quietly asks us to consider whether the moments we long to have back were actually missing time — or whether we simply didn’t realize how precious they were while we were living them.
This August, perhaps we don’t need to make the days fuller.
Perhaps we need to notice them more deeply.
2. Say the thing while you still can
So much of Before the Coffee Gets Cold revolves around words.
Words spoken too late.
Words misunderstood.
Words hidden behind pride, fear or uncertainty.
And words that someone desperately wishes they could say just once more.
We often save important conversations for the “right moment.”
I’ll tell them later.
I’ll call tomorrow.
I’ll say thank you next time.
I’ll explain when things calm down.
But life rarely announces which conversations will become the ones we remember.
Sometimes slow living is not about candles, quiet mornings or doing less.
Sometimes it is simply about creating enough space to say what matters while the person is still sitting across from us.
3. We cannot change the past, but we can change our relationship with it
This is perhaps the most beautiful contradiction at the heart of the book.
The café allows people to return to the past — while making it very clear that they cannot change what happened.
At first, that makes the journey seem almost pointless.
But gradually, another possibility appears.
Maybe healing doesn’t always require rewriting the story.
Sometimes we need to understand it differently.
To hear something we weren’t ready to hear.
To finally say something we carried for too long.
To look at an old moment through the eyes of the person we have become.
We cannot return to our own past.
But on a quiet morning, with a journal open beside us, we can sometimes do something surprisingly similar.
We can revisit.
Reflect.
Understand.
And perhaps carry the memory a little differently afterwards.
4. Ordinary moments often become the extraordinary ones
There are no grand time machines in this story.
No flashing lights.
No dramatic portals.
Just a café.
A chair.
A cup of coffee.
A conversation.
And perhaps that simplicity is part of what makes the story feel so close to the Slow Mornings Club philosophy.
Life is mostly made of ordinary moments.
The first sip of coffee in the morning.
Someone asking whether you slept well.
Sunlight falling across the kitchen table.
A familiar voice on the phone.
A book left open beside the bed.
We rarely know which ordinary moment will one day become something we would give anything to experience again.
So notice this one.
5. Some things are precious because they don't last
In Funiculi Funicula, every journey into the past comes with a limit.
The coffee is poured.
And from that moment, time begins to run out.
You cannot stay.
No matter how much you want another minute, eventually you must return.
There is something beautifully August-like about that.
Summer will end.
The warm mornings will change.
The light will soften.
The season will move forward whether or not we are ready.
But perhaps impermanence isn’t what makes a moment sad.
Perhaps it is what makes the moment worth noticing.
The coffee gets cold.
The sunset disappears.
August becomes September.
And that is precisely why we should be here for it.
This isn’t a book we would recommend rushing through simply because it is relatively short.
Instead, make it part of your slow morning routine.
Read one story at a time.
Make coffee or tea. Leave your phone somewhere else. Sit by an open window, on the balcony, outside in the early summer light, or in whichever corner of your home feels quietest.
And when something in the story makes you pause, let yourself pause.
You don’t need to immediately turn the page.
One of the loveliest ways to read Before the Coffee Gets Cold is to keep your journal nearby.
Because eventually, the book stops asking questions about its characters.
And starts asking questions about us.
Journaling Prompts Inspired by Before the Coffee Gets Cold
You don’t need a magical café to revisit your past.
Sometimes a blank page and a quiet morning are enough.
Choose one of these journaling prompts inspired by Before the Coffee Gets Cold and spend a few minutes writing without trying to create the perfect answer.
• If I could return to one ordinary moment from my life for ten minutes, which would I choose — and why?
• Is there something I wish I had said to someone when I had the chance?
• What conversation have I been postponing?
• Which ordinary part of my life today might I deeply miss one day?
• What memory would I like to revisit — not to change it, but simply to experience it once more?
• Is there something from my past I cannot change but might be ready to see differently?
• Who in my life deserves to hear how much they mean to me?
• Where am I physically present but mentally somewhere else?
• What am I rushing through that I actually want to remember?
• If I knew this August could never be repeated, what would I pay more attention to?
You don’t have to answer all ten.
One question. One cup of coffee. One honest page.
That is enough.
If Before the Coffee Gets Cold leaves you wanting more books that invite you to pause, reflect and see everyday life a little differently, explore our Books for Slow Mornings collection.
It brings together thoughtful reads chosen for quiet mornings — books about presence, mindfulness, self-discovery, intentional living and finding meaning in the ordinary.
You might also enjoy our previous Slow Mornings Club reads, including The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down by Haemin Sunim, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle and The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer.
There is no reading challenge here.
No number of books to finish.
Just books worth spending a little time with.
A Soft Note to Carry With You
There will always be another task.
Another plan.
Another place your mind can wander while your body remains here.
But there won’t always be another version of this morning.
This August morning.
This cup of coffee.
This conversation.
This particular version of the people you love.
We spend so much of our lives wishing we could hold on to certain moments — often without realizing that we are standing inside one of them right now.
So perhaps the lesson isn’t to make summer last longer.
Perhaps it isn’t even to make every moment meaningful.
It is simply to notice a little more.
Stay at the table a few minutes longer.
Look up when someone you love is speaking.
Taste your coffee while it is still warm.
Watch the evening light disappear without asking it to stay.
Because we don’t need a magical café to remind us that time passes.
We only need to remember:
be here before the coffee gets cold.
If this sounds like the kind of story you’d like beside your morning coffee this August, you can find Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi through our book link below.
And if you decide to read it with us, don’t worry about finishing it quickly.
Let the stories linger.
Perhaps even let a cup of coffee get a little cold beside you.
