Image by Larry Busacca/Getty Images

Image by Larry Busacca/Getty Images

The comedian called NPR for coffee talk as the public broadcaster’s “Morning Edition” show wrapped up its own Coffee Week. Seinfeld told “Morning Edition” host Steve Inskeep how his attitude towards the black stuff has changed over time.

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“I never liked it and I didn’t understand it and I used to do a lot of stuff in my standup set in the ’80s and ’90s about how I don’t ‘get’ coffee,” he said. “I don’t understand why everyone’s so obsessed with this drink.”

He grew to embrace coffee after marrying and having a family. “My entire day was not free for social interaction,” he said. “And meeting someone for coffee suddenly seemed like a wonderful, compact, accessible and portable social interaction.” (It also made a nice compliment to the French toast breakfasts he ate in hotels on tour.)

Seinfeld applies his playful eye to analyze all the accouterments of to-go coffee:

“I don’t know what the top does. I don’t know what the plastic stick does. I don’t even really know what the sleeve does. But I want that little kit because this is my morning toy. And then — and this is gonna sound very naive, I really am very naive in a lot of areas — I didn’t realize that caffeine has quite an effect on you. And that got to be another toy. So it’s this big fun toy.”

It’s fitting that the man who became famous for a show about nothing has moved into the pro-coffee camp.

“My theory is 98 percent of all human endeavor is killing time,” Seinfeld said. “This is a great way to do it.”

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