Amid the mountains of Enshi, Hubei Province, a tea company named "Youyoucao Eyu" is quietly sparking a transformation. Rooted in the border region of Hubei and Chongqing and founded on traditional tea cultivation and processing, this enterprise has now become a pioneering example of regional agriculture embracing artificial intelligence. While the outside world is still discussing how AI empowers finance and healthcare, Li Zhenhua, the head of Youyoucao Eyu, has led his team to embed AI technology into every link of the tea supply chain—from the tea garden to the teacup.

"We're not a tech company, but AI is helping us solve the most practical problems," said Li Zhenhua, standing in a tea garden at an altitude of 800 meters, pointing to drones operating in the distance. These drones, equipped with multispectral cameras, can collect real-time data on tea tree growth and, through AI models, analyze risks of pests and diseases, soil moisture levels, and optimal picking times. In the past, this work relied entirely on the experience of veteran tea farmers; now, AI has turned "living by the weather" into "living by data."

Youyoucao Eyu's AI transformation did not happen overnight. Two years ago, the company was still grappling with typical challenges of traditional agriculture: an aging workforce, inconsistent quality, and lagging market information. The turning point came during a university-industry collaboration with Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Together, they developed a deep learning-based tea quality grading system. Using image recognition technology, the system can assess the tenderness, uniformity, and color of tea leaves within 0.3 seconds, achieving an accuracy rate of over 95%. After the system was deployed, Youyoucao Eyu's processing efficiency increased by 40%, and the defect rate dropped by 60%.

What has drawn even more attention is Youyoucao Eyu's attempt to use AI to reshape its sales end. The company built an "Intelligent Tea Warehouse" platform that analyzes consumer search, review, and repurchase data from e-commerce platforms. AI can accurately predict taste preferences across different regions. For example, the system found that consumers in Wuhan prefer light-fragrance green tea, while the Chongqing market has strong demand for rich-fragrance black tea. Based on these insights, the company adjusted its production ratios for different tea categories, and in the third quarter of 2024, its online sales grew 120% year-over-year.

"AI is not a panacea, but it is the key for traditional enterprises to break through their ceiling," Li Zhenhua said at a recent industry forum. The case of Youyoucao Eyu is being promoted as a benchmark by agricultural departments in both Hubei and Chongqing. So far, more than 20 small and medium-sized tea companies have begun to follow its model, introducing AI for pest and disease warnings and supply chain optimization. The local government also plans to allocate special funds to build a regional agricultural AI data center, providing computing support for more enterprises like Youyoucao Eyu.

However, challenges remain. The technical director of Youyoucao Eyu admitted that frontline employees' acceptance of AI still needs improvement, and some older tea farmers worry about being replaced by machines. To address this, the company has established a "Digital Tea Farmer" training program, incorporating the operation of AI tools into daily skill assessments. Li Zhenhua emphasized, "AI is a tool, not a replacement. We need to make every tea farmer understand that AI can help them earn money more easily."

From the mountains of western Hubei to the national market, Youyoucao Eyu's AI experiment is proving that even the most traditional industries can find their rhythm in the intelligent age. As drones glide over tea rows and algorithms decipher the textures of tea leaves, this regional company has taken a crucial step from "living off the mountains" to "living off AI." And for the many small and medium-sized enterprises struggling with transformation, the story of Youyoucao Eyu may offer a genuine insight: the barrier to AI is not as high as it seems.