McDonald's sees future in English coffee houses

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 has become the latest U.S. heavyweight to enter the market here. The hamburger giant has purchased Aroma, 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) -- 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 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, 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.

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