LONDON -- Forget the morning "cuppa."

Increasing numbers of Britons, forsaking their traditional cup of breakfast tea, are lining up at coffee bars to order the likes of a semi-skimmed cappuccino with a double shot of espresso.Seeking to cash in on explosive growth in British coffee bars, McDonald's Corp. has become the latest U.S. heavyweight to enter the market here.

The hamburger giant has purchased Aroma Ltd., a chain of 23 shops that sell coffee and sandwiches in a lively atmosphere of recorded Caribbean music and bright yellow and orange decor. The deal, announced Thursday, is reportedly worth between $16 million and $24 million, and marks the first time McDonald's has ever invested in anything but a hamburger chain outside the United States.

Statistics are scarce, but the number of tony coffee bars in Britain has proliferated in the past three years, particularly in London and the more cosmopolitan southeast.

They appeal to a young, professional crowd, and their popularity reflects a change toward a faster-paced lifestyle -- one in which people want a good-tasting jolt of caffeine in a cafe setting.

"In Britain, tea has always been the big drink. It's a very homely drink, much more than coffee. People associate English afternoon cream tea with their granny," said Sara Jenkins, a marketing assistant with Pret A Manger (Europe) Ltd. -- a coffee and snack chain that aims to serve each customer in less than 90 seconds.

A well-steeped cup of tea with milk still has its loyalists, and tourists can indulge in the ritual of afternoon tea at London's fancier hotels. But coffee bars, which have been around for decades, began taking off in the 1990s.

Starbucks Coffee Co. blazed a trail across Britain last year, when it paid $87 million for a chain of 56 coffee shops founded by a pair of expatriates from Seattle.

Costa Ltd., one of the first British coffee chains, was started by two Italian brothers. Aroma was founded in 1991 by a Swiss businessman frustrated by his difficulty in finding a good cup of coffee.

"It's more European. People like someplace they can just drop in and spend 20 minutes or an hour, read the newspaper and have a coffee," said Lizzie Baldwin, 34, as she and her 12-year-old son, Joshua, polished off a pair of cappuccinos at a downtown Aroma shop for $2.25 a pop.

For some people, the new wave of British coffee bars offers what sociologists call the "third place" -- a place other than home or the workplace where people can meet and relax.

"The traditional British pub has been at the center of society as a meeting place, but it's a male society. The coffee shop is a lot less threatening for women," said Andrew Barrett, a director with APAX Partners and Co., the former majority owner of Aroma.

Britain's first coffee bars cropped up some 40 years ago, many of them run by immigrants from Italy and Greece. Groups of mods, the stylish youths who built a 1960s cult around motor scooters and amphetamines, gathered at them much as American teen-agers spent long evenings at drive-ins and pizza joints.

Despite a stiff price of $1.60 to $2.00 for a small cup of black coffee, shops in downtown London do a brisk business each weekday morning. At some of them, cappuccinos are the most popular hot drink.

"It's still not like the States. But you do see a few people carry take-out coffee, which 10 years ago you wouldn't have seen at all," Barrett said.

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Before purchasing Aroma, McDonald's had bought a stake in only one other business outside its traditional fast-food fare -- a restaurant chain in Denver called Chipotle Mexican Grill.

McDonald's expects Aroma to complement its strengths in family-style fast food with a more adult-oriented fare, said Eddie Bensilum, a company spokeswoman.

Starbucks employees still laugh about the day they opened their first shop in Manchester, Britain's second-largest city, said Lisa Doncaster, a store manager in London.

"The first customer came in," she said, "and all he wanted was a cup of tea. Which he got, of course."

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