Synopsis: “Tucked behind the trees in a quiet neighbourhood in Tokyo, the beloved Marble café offers a cup of warm, healing matcha to all who pass through its doors. Customers flock all week to Café Marble, tucked away behind the cherry trees. But Monday is a special day: the enigmatic owner hosts a tea tasting. The ritual invites its clientele to pause, reconnect with their inner peace, and rediscover the value of simplicity, allowing the bitterness of matcha to soothe their troubles. Following the twelve calendar months, Matcha on Monday follows people from all walks of life: a woman who needs to change her attitude, a couple facing a crisis, an artist who has lost her purpose, and a young woman struggling to break free from family expectations. As each customer frequents Café Marble’s cosy haven, they start their week with a warm sip of matcha and the joys of everyday human connection. Warm and luminous, this heart-warming story brings together a community of untold unfolding lives. As a snow-white cat peacefully puzzles over the surrounding humans, Café Marble becomes the setting for unexpected encounters that will change everything for those who walk through its doors—all starting with a cup of matcha.”

My Review

I really enjoyed this newly published collection of translated Japanese short stories, from one of my new favourite authors. This book is actually her Japanese debut, but published here in the UK as her fourth book. I pre-ordered this because I loved Hot Chocolate on Thursday, and couldn’t wait to get back into that world again. 

These stories are connected to the Marble Cafe, an independently owned coffee shop, in Tokyo featured in Hot Chocolate on Thursday, but not every story is set in the cafe.

There are twelve stories in this collection, and all the characters are once again connected in some way to each other. I love the way the author does this, it’s simple and works really well.

My favourite stories were The Old Man and the Tanzaku Strips, Finding the Missing Volume, Under the Delta’s Pine Tree, The Kangaroo is Waiting, and An Auspicious Day.

Just like her previous books not much happens, but I think that’s the charm of these stories, and it makes for a very calm and cosy reading experience.

Highly recommended if you enjoy contemporary short stories or translated fiction.

Book 7 of 20 Books of Summer 2026