Talk about your pilot(less) projects. Alibaba Group’s Taobao Marketplace shopping website and Shanghai YTO Express Logistics Co. today began a trial of delivery drones technology in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Over a three-day period, parcel-packingquadcopters will be used to ferry boxed sets ofginger teahigh above city traffic to450 Taobao shoppers who purchase the tea for RMB 49. The remote-controlled drones won’t be flown right to consumers’ doors. They’ll be landed outside residential buildings, where packageswill be collected by human-type couriers for last-mile duty.

By conducting the trial, Taobaoand YTO Express officials aren’thintingthatdrone-delivery service is ripe for commercialization in the PRC. As a Bloomberg News story points out,aviation authorities in China and the U.S. arepondering regulations to govern such activities. Alibaba characterizedthethree-day trial as a”one-off campaign.”

Check out thisvideo from Taobaoshowing a delivery drone in action in Beijing: