This week has been absolutely wonderful! Not only was I approved to go on my Birthright trip to Israel this year (much more on that soon!), but I was recognized for one of my passions; tea. I have been an avid loose tea drinker for about a year now and I am not looking back. It has become my ritual to start and end my day with a nice cup of loose tea from all different corners of the world. One day, a thought crept into my mind that I could make a tea and hopefully drive more and more people into the loose tea culture, and thus Vanilla Temptation was born.

After much deliberation and testing, I finally came up with a tea that I not only enjoyed myself, but  non-tea drinkers did as well. The flavor of vanilla is universal and warm, and my tea became popular among my family and circle of friends. It was at this time that I submitted my tea for review at Adagio.com (the largest online tea retailer in the USA) to see what their reviewer, Zack Luye, would say about my tea. As the time went by, I forgot that I ever asked for my tea to be reviewed and continued with my life. Tonight, out of a total whim, I went to the Adagio website, only to find my tea proudly on display with a video review! I nearly jumped out of my seat! Here I am, just surfing the web, and I pull up the exact review page on accident.

Review as displayed on Adagio

Please checkout my blend of tea, Vanilla Temptation, by clicking here, and watch the video review below! Thank you again to Adagio and Zach for taking the time to review, drink, and enjoy my tea. I hope that their review, coupled with my own passion and excitement, will open the eyes of many more people to the wonders of tea.

Adagio TeaV: Episode 41 from Zack Luye on Vimeo.

If you are not yet an Adagio.com member, send me an email for a free $5 coupon (good off my tea, or anything else)! Chandler (at) ChandlerWeiner (DOT) com.

I’m so excited, words cannot begin to describe my feelings right now (unfortunate for me as a blogger). Drink up and enjoy!

Update: My tea was also just reviewed by the wonderful Stephanie Harkins on her website, The Tea Review Blog. It will also be sent to her “panelists” to get all kinds of reviews from different sides and taste buds. From the review:

Vanilla Temptation, in the words of Chandler, consists of 30% Rooibos vanilla chai, 30% cream black tea, and 40% vanilla black tea.  Therefore it goes without saying that this is one seriously vanilla tea.

The chai base is warming but not overly spicy, with most of the stronger spices like ginger being muted considerably by the addition of cream and vanilla flavored Ceylon tea.  Everything about this tea is creamy, soothing and mild.

If you are looking for a very light chai, with a lot of creamy overtones, this is the tea for you!

Stay tuned for more reviews!

It’s been a while since I have posted a video! This introduction video was created by myself for the web and radio show Teen Talk Live, hosted by my good friend Chelsea Krost. You can watch/listen to the past shows on her website www.teentalklive.net. Enjoy!

This video was created in Adobe After Effects and finalized in Premier Pro. Some of you may remember a similar 3D particle world from my What’s Up Boca? introduction. I modeled a section of this video after that previous intro. As always, please post your comments about the video!

Only some of you are aware of a past television show of mine called What’s Up Boca? that aired on our local TV station. You can check out the old episodes at WhatsUpBoca.net.

The video below is the introduction to What’s Up Boca? and is one of my oldest After Effects comps. The video was created in Adobe After Effects and Premier Pro about two years ago (ages in television production!). So, enjoy some of my very early work. Please comment!

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Today I want to continue my showcase of my school-sponsored videos by showing you a quick video that I made for a talent show at my school called Mr. & Mrs. River. The theme for the movie was “stupid funny” and “Back to the Future”; I think I pulled it off quite well. We filmed this video at a local children’s park and yes, set it to Girls Just Want To Have Fun.

This video was created in Adobe Premier Pro and Adobe After Effects. After many revisions (one of the teachers had a lot of constructive criticism), this is the version that played at the talent show. Enjoy it and don’t forget to post your comments! I read them all.

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This is another video that I produced in the beginning of this year; the Class of `09 WSRH welcoming video. I had to come up with a creative way to show off my TV studio on the first day of class, so I wipped up this video. To explain my thought process, I wanted to show how WSRH is breaking away from the molds of traditional TV and instead involving everyone in a dynamic and changing environment. Not to spoil too much!

This video was created in Adobe After Effects and Premier Pro with music from the Creative Commons library. Using two After Effects compositions, I created two virtual worlds for a camera to fly around in, thus meshing 3D with video as is my specialty. The video has been heavily compressed from its original HD broadcast quality to prepare it for Internet streaming.

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Please post your comments to tell me what you think!