Tales From the Cafe

Coffee symbolizes the connection between the everyday and the magical. One of the key symbols across the series, coffee is an example of something that is simultaneously quotidian and supernatural. As a whole, the series subverts tropes of magical realism that deal with time travel. Rather than a wild, unexpected circumstance in which the entire future could be changed, time travel in Kawaguchi’s work is controlled and comparatively banal because of its specific set of rules. Coffee is an effective representation of this interplay between normal and magical. On one hand, coffee is the substance that enables café patrons to travel through time. The ritual of coffee pouring is significant and specific: Only female members of the Tokita family who are older than seven years of age can pour the coffee, it is brewed carefully and presented in the same silver receptacle, and the rules for time travel are recited. When the coffee is poured, the recipient travels back in time, and they must finish it before it gets cold, so they do not die.

At the same time, coffee is also just coffee in the novel. The café serves primarily non-magical coffee to its patrons, and only those who sit in a specific seat travel through time.