Italian 'coffee king' Renato Bialetti buried in coffee pot

MONTEBUGLIO, Italy, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- After Renato Bialetti, 93, died last week his children decided to honor his life's work by placing his ashes in a container that symbolized his family's legacy.

During a funeral service in Montebuglio, Italy Bialleti's ashes were buried in a replica of the Moka coffee pot, which his father, Alfonso, invented.

Bialetti's three children Alfonso, Antonella and Alessandra reportedly, came up with the idea to bury their father in the octagonal coffee pot he dedicated his life to popularizing.

Bialetti took the modest sales of his father's company, which had only manufactured 70,000 pots when he gained control in 1947, and used an aggressive marketing campaign to make the pot a staple in coffee-drinking homes, with approximately 330 million sold worldwide.

The unique urn was blessed by a priest at the funeral ceremony attended by about 200 people at a church in Casale Corte Cerro, Piedmont.

When the ceremony ended, the pot was placed in the family tomb next to the remains of Bialetti's wife Elia.