from Wikipedia:
The first known straws were made by the Sumerians, and were used for drinking beer,[1] probably to avoid the solid byproducts of fermentation that sink to the bottom.[citation needed] The oldest drinking straw in existence, found in a Sumerian tomb dated 3,000 B.C.E., was a gold tube inlaid with the precious blue stone lapis lazuli.[1] Argentines and their neighbors used a similar metallic device called a bombilla, that acts as both a straw and sieve for drinking mate tea for hundreds of years.[1]