Where I live (NZ) nearly all cafes have a manual espresso machine and making a coffee is a bit of work. We don't have a tipping culture at all, but I'd gladly t

Where I live (NZ) nearly all cafes have a manual espresso machine and making a coffee is a bit of work. We don't have a tipping culture at all, but I'd gladly tip a dollar to a barista who makes a better than usual coffee. When I visited the US recently I noticed that manual coffee machines aren't much of a thing anymore - or maybe it was an area thing because I don't recall this being the case when I lived in the US briefly 10 years ago. The upshot of this is - it's not skilled work to produce a coffee, they're not as good (on average), and they're easily 2-3 times the price per coffee after tipping. I can only assume that cafes in the US are making an absolute killing.