The Cybernetic Tea Shop

 The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz, 118 pages. 

Clara Gutierrez repairs Raises, limited AI companions that are thriving since the creation of true-AI "robots" was banned decades ago for ethical reasons. Technicians like her are needed everywhere, which really enables her nomadic lifestyle. When she rolls into Seattle she expects it to be just another stop. What she doesn't expect is to find is a real robot running a tea shop, and what she expects even less is that her feelings for that robot would leave her not wanting to keep moving. 

Sal has been running the tea shop of her original owner for well over 250 years, and is desperately trying to help the cafe reach it's 300th anniversary, a task that keeps feeling harder and harder with her own failing body and the anti-robot vandalism that keeps striking the cafe. When she and Clara start spending more time things start changing for the first time in centuries, which is a lot to handle.

This was a really cute little novella. I was impressed by how well the author was able to flesh out the world in so few pages. I also found the romance pretty cute, which is also less common for me in short fiction. This is a nice, warm little story. It almost feels like a cup of warm tea itself.