Shelf-Reflecting: Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Toshikazu Kawaguchi

“At the end of the day, whether one returns to the past or travels to the future, the present doesn't change.”

-- Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (translated from the Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot)

Why must we drink coffee before it gets cold? It’s simple. Your hot cup of joe tastes best at the right temperature. Lest it loses its essence.

Three years ago, I picked this book up because its cover had a cat and a cup of coffee. And I promptly left it, thinking it was just an anthology of short stories. Till, at take two, I realized that even anthologies can be stories interwoven.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is not simply a plot device. The book poignantly asks you, “If you could go back, who would you want to meet?” And who you want to meet isn’t far from, “What would you like to change?”  Such is the bittersweet nature of hindsight.

Without spoiling the book, my takeaway is really a reminder that we will never have control over the past or the future in a way that disrupts the natural flow of life. But if you must revisit a moment, you must also fully accept that moments, just as they are, are only meant to be savored—you cannot linger too long. So, savor them. Before the coffee gets cold.

Because cold coffee is heavy coffee.

And isn’t it funny how, sometimes, we’re too scared to drink the coffee when it’s just right? Maybe we fear the burn of something too intense or the disappointment of something not quite perfect. We hesitate, we wait—and when it cools, we blame the coffee, not our own timing. Relationships often mirror this. We hold people at arm’s length, waiting for the perfect moment to connect, to speak, to show up fully. But just like that cup of coffee, the magic of relationships isn’t in some imagined perfection. It’s in the imperfect, present moment—where warmth still lingers if only we dare to taste it.

So, here’s to drinking the coffee when it’s hot. To showing up before it’s too late. And to remembering that moments, like coffee, were never meant to wait for us.