It’s a quiet late summer day at Paramount Coffee Project, a modern café nestled on Los Angeles’ Fairfax Avenue, and founder Mark Dundon is behind the bar pulling an espresso. The long, narrow interior of the space begins with the coffee bar and ends with a small kitchen turning out avocado toast and muesli on yogurt. It’s the kind of coffee shop that strikes a balance between caffeinated drinks, food offerings elevated beyond the pastry case—and good ol’ fashioned hospitality. For Dundon, it’s an extension of café culture from his homeland of Melbourne, Australia.

The Aussies know a thing or two about the café. Starting shortly after World War II, a large exodus of Italians and Greeks made their way to the continent—specifically to Melbourne. They quickly introduced espresso shots along with their concept of café culture, which throughout the years has become more refined with the rise of specialty coffee, and the idea of approaching coffee drinking as a lifestyle rather than simply fuel. For Americans, lingering over a single-origin cortado and shaksuka is still something new, but it’s quickly becoming the norm in cities like Los Angeles thanks to concepts like Paramount Coffee Project.

On our second episode of Get Something Brewing, in partnership with KitchenAid®, Handsome Coffee founder and our go-to coffee expert, Tyler Wells, sits down with Dundon for a chat about the difference in the coffee culture of Australia and America (which is headed on a collision course, as Wells would put it), and their hope for better coffee at home (with the help of products like the KitchenAid® Precision Press Coffee Maker).

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Produced by Life & Thyme Productions in partnership with Mothersauce