I have written an SSCCE for you, if you run it, typing in the TextArea
will result in showing you in the console which events were captured
and its details. As you will see the KEY_PRESSED event is captured.

Kind regards, Jonck

import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;

/**
* @author jonck
*/
public class TestWindow {
   private JFrame window;
   private ConsoleTextArea text;

   public static void main(String[] args) {
       new TestWindow();
   }

   public TestWindow() {
       initComponents();
       buildPanel();
   }

   private void initComponents() {
       setWindow(new JFrame());
       setText(new ConsoleTextArea());
       getText().setPreferredSize(new Dimension(100, 100));
   }

   private void buildPanel() {
       getWindow().getContentPane().add(getText());
       getWindow().pack();
       getWindow().setVisible(true);
   }

   private class ConsoleTextArea extends JTextArea {
       protected void processKeyEvent(KeyEvent ke) {
           super.processKeyEvent(ke);
           System.out.println(ke);
       }
   }
   public ConsoleTextArea getText() {
       return text;
   }
   public void setText(ConsoleTextArea text) {
       this.text = text;
   }
   public JFrame getWindow() {
       return window;
   }
   public void setWindow(JFrame window) {
       this.window = window;
   }
}