My previous (and only) encounter with the Coffee Rush line of games from Korea Boardgames was Coffee Rush: Grab’n’Go — a fast-paced game of coffee order fulfilment which I reviewed in TSM #30 earlier this year. We found it a chaotic mix of speed and dexterity, but still really enjoyed it, even if we haven’t quite plucked up the courage to try the Master Barista variant! You can check that review out using this link: Tabletop SPIRIT #30
Anyway, Coffee Rush: Winter is a standalone spinoff of the original game, and unlike in the Grab’n’Go version that I played, in this one you’re racing to fulfill orders to pick up likes and dislikes — the coffee orders will keep coming, but if you’re unable to fulfill them they will slip down the queue in subsequent rounds until they eventually drop off completely (thus earning you a dislike). This might seem dichotomous, but basically the longer you take to fulfil an order, the more likely it is to end up missed. Needless to say, likes are good, and dislikes are bad.
The box came with both English and Korean Rulebooks!
The main box is very compact and a relatively standard size for a light-midweight boardgame, coming in at 28cm x 22 cm x 7cm (approx) and packing some fantastic components which fit tidily inside – it even has a custom plastic insert that actually works, something many other publishers could learn from in my opinion.
Notably —apart from the main fold-up board— there are 4 x player boards (which serve as each player’s main ‘counter’), 8 x wooden meeples, and 24 x upgrade tiles – these are colour coded for each player (red, blue, green and yellow).
Also in the box are 16 x ingredient tiles that are used to set-up the board, 2 x ingredient trays, 100+ plastic physical mini-ingredient tokens and 12 x mini-plastic coffee mugs (which are just amazing and real fun to photograph, as you can probably see for yourself from the photos on this page!). There are also 15 cookie tokens, 90 order cards —including 40 special-recipe menus— and a large starting player token. The large-format rulebook is just 12 pages, very easy to read and understand, and provides plenty of examples throughout.
Production-wise, everything in the box is of excellent quality, with only the cookie tokens looking a little drab in comparison to the rest of the components: slightly thicker ones would’ve been nice, but we’re just splitting hairs here, because those mini-ingredients and coffee mugs look so cool, and are an absolute joy to handle!
Changes to the original Coffee Rush…
Owners of the original Coffee Rush (2023) game are urged to note that the scoring is slightly different in this version, and the addition of 16 separate ingredient tiles means there’s an opportunity to implement different set-ups for the main board. The rulebook does offer a couple of alternative set-ups, but you can pretty much set things up however you wish in this version. Other than slight changes to the components, the main differences are the introduction of orange slices instead of caramel chunks, and the ice tokens are shaped liked mini-snowmen — in keeping with the Winter theme, of course!
I’m not sure there’s enough here to warrant getting this edition if you already own the original Coffee Rush, but for those not familiar with the game this is an excellent place to start, moreso if you’re looking for something new and refreshing as a present for Christmas… I’m hoping it’s not too early to use that word, but the theme is definitely quite appropriate for that time of year!
And finally…
I know several people in my local gaming group have played the original Coffee Rush game and they’ve already expressed an interest in trying this one, so I’m very much looking forward to satisfying both their curiosity and mine… 👍
— Alex Bardy, 04Sept26
