New cherry blossom party picnic essential: This super-handy folding cardboard table

This might be the perfect hanami table.

With sakura season officially underway and full bloom coming to many parts of Japan over the next two weeks, it’s time to start finalizing hanami (cherry blossom-viewing) party plans. The classic, and many would say still the best, way to enjoy the cherry blossoms is to head to a park, find a spot under the sakura trees, and enjoy a leisurely day of relaxing, snacking, and drinking, either soft drinks or alcoholic beverages, under the pink petals.

Ah, but it’s easier to eat and drink if you’re got a table, isn’t it? However, with public transportation being the primary way of getting around in Japan, lugging a standard folding table to the park isn’t really an option. However, it turns out there’s a handy, convenient, and extremely affordable alternative.

We actually bought this 487-yen (US$3.15) Folding Cardboard Table a while back, through Amazon Japan, while putting together a disaster preparedness kit. It says right there on the packaging, though, that it’s perfect for outdoor events like cherry blossom parties, and since we’ve got a bunch of those coming up in the very near future, we decided to test the table out at home first to see if it really works as well as advertised.

Folded up, it measures roughly 26 by 36 centimeters (10.2 x 14.2 inches), making it compact enough to easily slide into a moderately sized backpack or tote bag, but once it’s put together the tabletop is a more expansive 34.5 by 51.2 centimeters. Being made of cardboard it’s light too, weighing just 420 grams (14.8 ounces).

After removing the wrapping we saw that the entire thing consists of just three parts: the tabletop (which folds in half), the base, and one additional piece. To assemble it, you actually start by unfolding the tabletop and placing it on the ground, upside down. Then you unfold the base so that it crisscrosses like shown in the photo below, and slide in into the tabletop’s notches.

The base has two notches in it too, at corners of its central diamond…

…and this is where you insert the third piece, which acts as extra bracing.

Once you’ve done that, all that’s left is to flip your table over!

The whole process takes literally just a few seconds, and the tabletop is actually rather steady, with no significant wobbling when we tried jiggling it with our hand.

However, because the table is so light, it could get blown around if you’re outside with it on a particularly windy day. There’s an easy solution to that, though, and it’s something you’ll no doubt be planning to do: put stuff on it, which will help weigh it down.

According to the manufacturer, the Foldable Cardboard Table can support five kilograms (11 pounds) of weight, and with a standard-sized can of beer or soda weighing around 370 grams, that means you should be able to put 13 of them on there. Unfortunately, we didn’t have quite that much liquid refreshment stockpiled for our test, but the table did handle two cans, plus a bottle of wine, with no problem in structural integrity or stability.

So yeah, this thing should work perfectly for a cherry blossom party. While you can’t fit an entire opulent feast on top of it, it’s big enough to accommodate you and a couple buddies.

In addition to the low cost and light weight, the cardboard construction also means that if you’re picnicking with kids, you can let them doodle or put stickers on it, and if/when the table reaches the end of its service life, you can put it out with your other recyclables on trash day. And should you need more space, in addition to a single table for 487 yen, Amazon Japan is also selling a bundle of two for 974 here.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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