Food

Jerry Seinfeld Gets Coffee Now

Image by Larry Busacca/Getty Images

By Susan Armitage April 26, 2013

Image by Larry Busacca/Getty Images

Jerry Seinfeld gets coffee now. Not just getting it as in his new web series, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” but as in actually understanding the beverage, its culture and its rituals.

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.

“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.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO