Nicholas Benson ’84: The Daily Grind

On any given morning, an unusual aroma emanates from the barn on the property where Nicholas Benson ’84 lives in rural Washington, Connecticut. The air is redolent with notes of walnut, dark chocolate and licorice as gentle crackling and popping sounds hint at the source. This is where Benson roasts beans for his passion project, the smallbatch coffee brand Zero Prophet Coffee.

Benson’s portfolio includes both distinctive single-origin coffees and well-balanced blends that he roasts to order on his 10-pound-capacity Diedrich roaster. He offers a flavor for every palate — including a classic, full-bodied Sumatran, a white coffee from Ethiopia and a water-processed, low-acid decaf from Mexico. The Hidden Valley blend, Benson’s favorite, layers notes of smooth dark chocolate and pecan, and is named for the land preserve next to the roastery.

Benson cultivated his taste for high-quality coffee while living abroad as the child of a diplomat. Born in what was then West Germany, he was raised primarily in Eastern Europe. There he developed an appreciation for Turkish coffee and Vienna-style roasts — as well as ice hockey and Rachmaninoff. By the time he was in the eighth grade, he was officially a coffee drinker.

When Benson returned stateside in 1980 to attend the Academy, he found the coffee underwhelming. He jokes that the Italians would disparage it as “aqua colorata,” or “colored water.” “My older brother and I commiserated for years about the poor quality,” Benson recalls. “We had the dream of starting a roasting business a long time ago, but we never did it.”

Until 2005. During a faculty meeting at the Frederick Gunn School in Washington, where Benson has taught English for the past 17 years, “I had the lightbulb, the brain wave,” he says with a laugh. He even sketched what would become his brand’s logo.

The timing was right, with an American coffee renaissance of sorts finally underway and the introduction of home roasting machines. “Everything sort of converged,” he says. “So I had to do it — to translate a long love of coffee and cooking.”

Benson started out using a Whirley Pop popcorn maker to roast the beans, turning them with the hand crank. “You get a real feel for how roasting looks, sounds and smells,” he says. The process takes about 13 minutes, and even now he prefers to use his senses instead of timers to gauge readiness. In 2009, he officially entered the market as a wholesaler. He currently sells Zero Prophet Coffee in a dozen farm markets and specialty food stores in Connecticut’s Litchfield and New Haven counties.

The name Zero Prophet Coffee conveys an emphasis on creativity over profitability as well as a commitment to supporting worthy causes. Benson regularly donates a portion of sales to two organizations: the Steep Rock Association, a nonprofit land trust near his home, and Fundacion Perros Sin Nombre, which provides veterinary care for stray dogs and cats in Honduras.

“Prophet” is also apropos to Benson’s pursuits outside the coffee realm. He has a master’s degree in writing, and in 2024 published a collection of his poetry, I Commissioned Some Wooden Luggage. He is also an acclaimed translator, with a Ph.D. in Italian from New York University. In January, he published (°) – seed: and other poems, a translation of selected poems by Maria Grazia Calandrone and edited by Beppe Cavatorta.

This fall Benson is a visiting artist and scholar at the American Academy in Rome. It’s a pilgrimage back to one of the places in Europe that most captured his heart as a child and inspired his self-described “restless life” of writing and travel.

Coffee, it seems, provides a measure of balance, a daily ritual connecting past and present. Yet despite its success, Zero Prophet remains a side project, and this is the way Benson prefers to keep it.