Renato Bialetti Dies, Ashes Placed In Coffee Pot He Made Famous

Italian coffee king Renato Bialetti passed away at the age of 93 last Thursday, and there couldn't have been a more fitting final resting place.

Bialetti was cremated and his ashes were placed in none other than a replica of the stovetop espresso maker he made famous.

The decision was made by Bialetti's children, Alessandra, Antonello, and Alfonso, who took the pot to his hometown of Casale Corte Cerro to be blessed by a priest during a funeral service, The Daily Mail reports.

Though Bialetti did not invent the Moka coffee pot, he is credited with making the pots and the family name famous. It was Bialetti's father, Alfonso, who patented the pot in 1933, according to The Local. When Bialetti took over the company in 1947, only 70,000 pots had been manufactured. Today, over 300 million Bialetti Moka pots have been sold around the world, and Bialetti is a household name.

The L'omino con i baffi, or the little man with the moustache, which appears on all Bialetti Moka pots, is a caricature of Renato Bialetti.