As promised, here is part two of my traveling coffee review, as my quixotic coffee quest continues on a second coast. After some misadventures with two ancient drip coffee makers, I bought a French press at Peet's Coffee and Tea on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. I also acquired some of the specialty chain's Aged Sumatra, on top of the plain old Sumatra I wrote about yesterday. Name: Peet's Aged Sumatra

Geographic Origin: Sumatra, Indonesia.

Description: Nothing on the bag, but the Peet's Web site says: "A very rich coffee with a slight hint of a tropical wood flavor, a concentrated dried fruit sweetness, herbal notes, and ample body."

Date Purchased: Dec. 28.

Date Roasted: Unknown, but presumably this weekend, based on the Peet's promise that beans are roasted six days a week and are stocked in stores within a day.

Source: Peet's Coffee and Tea, 12215 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City, Ca.

The Pour: I had an easier time of it today with the Bodum Chambord, pictured above, because the Aged Sumatra was ground coarse, the proper method for a French press. The Sumatra had been ground finer, for an automatic coffee maker, which made it harder to apply pressure on the plunger. I was a little fearful on Sunday that it might all shatter, spraying me with glass and hot coffee. Today it was easy as pie. I enlisted a nearby child to time the steeping at precisely 4 minutes. Supposedly, aged coffee can be a bit of a shock, with a bite at first, and I suppose that was true in this case. But I found it tastier than the regular Sumatra, full-flavored with plenty of body. I guess I tasted the tropical wood, but I'm still trying to detect the dried fruit. It's certainly not an overpowering part of the taste, which is fine by me. The flavor is improving by the minute, in fact.

Effects: As I suspect is the case with most people, east-to-west jetlag is generally easier for me than the reverse. I just keep myself awake the first couple of days while sleeping in, which means I still wake up early on local time, yet refreshed from extra hours of sleep. But one drawback is that my body is aching for caffeine at inappropriate times. That makes me fuzzy, unfocused and crabby. The Aged Sumatra has taken care of that, giving me enough clarity to wonder, what's this about "aged" coffee? Isn't old coffee a bad thing? Apparently not. Here's what Peet's has to say about the aging process:

Good aged coffees are very hard to find, due to the lengthy aging process and the fact that coffee exporters usually want to convert their coffee to cash as soon as possible. But there are a few who are willing to wait, knowing that the fine aged coffee can be worth quite a bit more.... Aging must take place in a tropical environment, where beans take on moisture at the height of the monsoon season, and give it back during the drier season, without ever drying completely. This process deepens the flavor and makes it mellower, while accentuating certain taste components over others.

Well, whatever. I've had two mugs of the stuff, with no complaints, and I'm ready to roll.

Making good coffee when traveling is a hassle, especially if you are staying with people who don't make it regularly, as is my current situation. So my search for the perfect shot has been somewhat disrupted. I went down to the Valley, as they call it here, and found a Peet's Coffee and Tea on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. My coffee geek friends from the West Coast have always sworn by Peet's. The list of beans on the wall was heavy on citrus-y flavors, and I asked for something richer, nuttier. The staff concluded that I should go with something Indonesian. I settled on this and had them grind it for use in a drip coffee maker. I took it back to where we were staying, and then my troubles began. Name: Peet's Sumatra

Geographic Origin: Sumatra, Indonesia.

Description: Nothing on the bag, but the Peet's Web site says: "Very full body, very concentrated flavor. Sweet, slightly earthy, herbal nuances... It's not the most refined or elegant coffee you can drink, but its gutsy and earthy richness is very seductive." It's a longtime standard at Peet's.

Date Purchased: Dec. 27.

Date Roasted: Unknown, but presumably Dec. 26 or Dec. 27 based on this promise on the bag: "We roast six days a week to fill the daily orders from our stores... We don't store our roasted coffee. Coffee we roast today will be in our stores... the next business day."

Source: Peet's Coffee and Tea, 12215 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City, Ca.

The Pour: Our hosts had a couple of old drip coffee makers up on a shelf. Emphasis on old. And dusty. So when I got around to making coffee this morning, the first one did not function properly, and the water overflowed the plastic gold filter. The second one could not be compelled to push water through the filter. So it was back down the hill to buy a French press, a Bodum Chambord, at Peet's. This was my preferred method of making coffee before I bought the fancy automatic espresso maker I use at home. I also bought another pound of coffee, this time "Aged Sumatra," with a rough grind for a French press. In the confusion of re-learning how to make coffee this way, I ended up using the finer grind plain Sumatra for the drip machines. It worked out OK, though I did have some difficulty pressing down, which the French press instructions had warned about. I'll try the other grind tomorrow. After some trial and error, I had a good cup. The flavor was deep, rich, as promised, with a slightly bitter aftertaste (I may have made it too strong). It had a full, smooth body, quite pleasant. No citrus or hints of berry and so forth, as promised. I added a bit of soy milk to take the edge off.

Effects: It also took the edge off my mood, which had been aggravated by the broken drip coffee makers and the extra trip down the hill. I stopped growling at people and decided to do this blog post, even though I'm supposedly on vacation, because this is my strange idea of a good time. I look forward to comparing this cup to the Aged Sumatra tomorrow. Here's a little more detail from the Peet's site about the growing process:

Sumatra is another classic Indonesian coffee but totally different from Java. Java's coffees are grown on estates and processed by the washed method; Sumatra's coffees are grown by small landholders who may only have a few trees on their property, and they are processed by the dry method. The ripe coffee cherries are pulped by hand and spread in the sun to dry rather than being rinsed in water overnight. The net result of dry-processed coffee is very heavy body and very full flavor.