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Coffee talk is a fantastic contribution to the cosy visual novel genre. A lush visual presentation combined with a calming soundtrack serves as a fantastic catalyst to tell a story that feels written from the heart. While the game's main mechanic doesn’t get much time in the sun, it will still hook you into the experience.

Positives:
Wonderful aesthetic, soundtrack and atmosphere that does a fantastic job of reeling you in. The coffee making format of storytelling is immersive (but flawed) fun that serves as an amazing foundation for future titles.

Negatives:
There are some clashes with the coffee making mechanics and the story telling itself, with the mechanic feeling like it’s not used to full potential.

Neutrals:
Going for 100% is quite easy but guide material is almost certainly required to do so.

The Details
Game Mechanics and Game Flow
Given this game is a visual novel at heart, I’m going to take this section to just discuss the main mechanic of interaction within the story, that being making coffee. The coffee making is a great idea and its execution in theory feels quite satisfying to pull off. However, this is a mechanic that is just not given enough support to fully bloom.
The mechanic boils down to essentially serving what drink is requested (or sometimes what you believe should be served) which then opens up the characters to sharing more dialogue with you. I personally think that this base idea works fine,however I found myself wishing what drinks you served were easier to intuit. Half of the drinks required to serve for major plot events are not told to you, leaving you to either figure out the recipe in endless mode or use a guide.
A saving grace for this would have been better use of clues through the story, allowing for more moments where the puzzle pieces click together and you realise; “Now is the time” for this drink. It would have given some great payoffs and would give the player far more agency in gameplay. It would have strongly promoted the player's place as an active listener throughout the story. Some parts of the story toy with this idea but it doesn’t go far enough in my opinion.

Visuals
There’s plenty of merits this game can proudly wear and visuals is one of them. Fantastic pixel art, with very evident time and love put into all of the characters designs. The backgrounds are well designed as well, with the coffee shop itself being centre stage for the entire story. Each character sprite as well does a fantastic job of conveying their emotions as well, with a wide selection of expressions across the board to assist with providing feeling to spoken word.

Story
A Visual novel without good writing is like having a shotgun without shells. Thankfully, this game delivers on this front quite well. Your role in the story is as an open ear, with you sitting back listening to various people’s woes and issues. If you provide the right drink and a kind word here and there, you’ll help these people see their problems through.
First, the framing of the world in a more fantasy driven world I think is actually a great choice. While you can make the point that nothing extravagant is done with this world, I believe it’s actually a great catalyst for talking about issues of prejudice and discrimination without having to dismantle a real world issue directly (Although the game does get a smidge on the nose about this at one point)
Second, the characters and their arcs themselves. While all story arcs in this game are not created equal, each one of them do have notes they hit that are bound to resonate. I don’t want to elaborate too much as these games benefit greatly from playing blind. But I can give my reassurances and say this story is worth experiencing.

Audio
The soundtrack for this is a gem as well, providing a fantastic album (composed by one artist) full of lo-fi beats that serve as fantastic background that don’t detract from the action (that being reading and making coffee). There are a few songs that are a bit harsher on the ears than others but you have full control over what song plays so that’s no worries.
As for sfx, it’s solid. The usual clatters of shuffles of a coffee shop are captured just fine. The sounds for dialogue advancement are also crisp and non intrusive on the ears too.
As a side note, there is no voice acting in the game but on the workshop, some dedicated fans have fully voice acted the entire game so if you like your dialogue spoken, you’re in luck.

Longevity and Achievement List Review
For this review, I did one big playthrough of the story, going for the final ending which took me approximately 4 hours. To elaborate, I read fairly fast so that playtime can have a lot of variance. I also did use a guide at some point to assist at some points as well in the story.
Going for the achievements in this game was a fairly easy ride, only adding an additional 2 hours to my playtime. This was mainly spent staring at latte art for an hour and playing challenge mode (Which very much requires guide material as well). The achievements in this game were all very fun and natural to get, with only two being a bit silly in hindsight (those being making latte art for an hour and chucking out a load of drinks)
As an additional note, the game includes a fantastic gallery mode to enjoy once you have finished your adventure, which includes lots of great concepts, pieces, comics and art from the games development. A really nice treat once you have finished the story and the challenge mode!