Drone Technology Boosts Spring Tea Harvest in Shaanxi’s Xixiang County

As spring breeze sweeps across the Qinba Mountains, 360,000 mu of ecological tea gardens in Xixiang County, Shaanxi Province, have entered the peak season for the first spring tea picking. Breaking away from the traditional manual transportation mode, the local area has launched drones to transport fresh tea leaves, building an efficient and convenient "air tea route" that greatly improves the efficiency of spring tea production, fully preserves the freshness of spring tea, and enhances the quality of Hanzhong Xianhao, a characteristic famous tea, as well as the vitality of the industry’s development.

Known as "the first tea county in Northwest China", Xixiang County boasts the largest tea garden area and output in the northwest region. The tea industry serves as the pillar industry of the county and the core industry for tens of thousands of tea farmers to increase their income and get rich. Restricted by the mountainous terrain, the transportation of fresh spring tea leaves used to rely entirely on tea farmers carrying them on their shoulders and backs. This method was not only time-consuming and laborious with high transportation costs, but also easily caused collisions and damage to the tender buds and leaves, directly affecting the quality of finished tea products.

On March 20, the 2026 Shaanxi Hanzhong Xianhao Picking Festival was held at the Dongyu Zaoyuan Lake Ecological Tea Garden in Xixiang County. Shaanxi Dongyu Biotechnology Co., Ltd. took the lead in putting drone fresh leaf transportation technology into use, becoming a new technological scene in the Qinba tea mountains.

In the tea gardens, tea farmers pick fresh leaves with baskets. After collection and weighing, the fresh leaves are immediately transported by drones. The drones take off steadily along the preset routes and deliver the fresh leaves directly from the tea gardens to the processing site in just a few minutes. This efficient transportation method ensures that the fresh leaves retain their tenderness and nutritional value to the greatest extent, laying a solid foundation for the high quality of Hanzhong Xianhao.

Most of the tea garden bases of the enterprise are located at an altitude of 1,000 to 1,200 meters. Compared with traditional manual transportation, drone transportation of fresh leaves improves efficiency several times. It can adapt to the complex terrain of mountainous tea gardens, realize efficient, stable and damage-free transportation of fresh leaves, and accurately solve the core pain point of fresh leaf transportation in the mountainous tea industry. This initiative is also an important practice for the local tea industry to transform towards intelligence and modernization, providing a replicable and promotable new model for the upgrading of Shaanxi’s tea industry.

This year, the quality of spring tea in Xixiang is particularly outstanding, benefiting from appropriate light and rain in the early stage, which has ensured a full growth period for the tea leaves. The tea buds are green and plump with obvious white hairs, and the finished tea has a strong tender fragrance and a fresh taste, attracting consumers and dealers from all over the country to taste and purchase. Technological empowerment has made the quality of Hanzhong Xianhao more stable, continuously enhanced its brand competitiveness and expanded its market channels.

As a characteristic famous tea from the birthplace of millennium tribute tea, Hanzhong Xianhao has now broken the bottlenecks in industrial development with the support of technological innovation. It not only maintains the foundation of traditional quality, but also improves the production efficiency of the industry. In the next step, the local area will continue to promote the in-depth integration of the tea industry with technology, strengthen quality control and brand building, turn the small tea leaves into "golden leaves" that drive people to increase their income and help rural revitalization, and let the fragrance of Qinba tea spread to a broader market.

With a long history of tea production dating back to the Shang and Zhou dynasties, Hanzhong has been a famous producer of tribute tea and high-quality tea since ancient times. Hanzhong Xianhao, as a geographical indication product, has won numerous awards in domestic and international tea expositions, with its brand value continuing to rise. The application of drone technology in fresh leaf transportation is another important step in the high-quality development of Hanzhong’s tea industry, injecting strong momentum into the inheritance and innovation of traditional tea culture.