This is absolutely true. There are actually two smells that the roasting process produces that I like. There is a nice, mellow grassy smell as the beans begin to dry out and turn from green to a very light golden color. Then there is the ultimate smell the next morning when you stick your nose in the container that was holding the previous day's new roast. Outside of that though, it is AWFUL. It reeks. I roast on my workbench in the garage, and my fiancee complains about how the house smells just from me coming back in and putting my coat in the basement. It gets in your hair really bad as well. For the raw beans, most people get them from Sweet Maria's online. They supply coffee shops and most of the home roasters in the country I'd wager. They sell a sampler pack for starting out, but I wouldn't go that route. Instead, buy two pounds of a medium quality bean. Nothing to crappy or too expensive. Then with the same bean, attempt all of the different roast profiles, from light to dark. This way, you can really familiarize yourself with how the different roasts affect the flavor and get a handle on things before moving on to a new bean which will change the flavor on you. I went one better and bought raw beans from a local roaster that owns a small coffee shop in our town. So I've been roasting an Ethiopian Limu bean, and while I have been, I've been popping into his shop every few days and ordering a French Press of his roast of the same bean. This way I can compare the results I'm getting to what this professional roaster is putting out with the same raw bean. He's my control. I'm almost done with this batch, and after that I'm probably going to go on to Sweet Maria's website and hunt down the next victim. I bet you could roast in your apartment. The Air Crazy takes up no space, and as long as you have a porch or balcony, you could just plug in an extension and go to town. The whole process takes less than 10 minutes. Put it this way, -if anybody in your apartment barbecues, then you can definitely do this. Sweet Maria's has a ton of forums and resources for this, as well as selling everything one would need:I almost did this in 2000 and then I started working next to a coffee roaster. What I thought would be an awesome smell was actually closer to a hershey bar roasting on a hickory fire.