The first known straws were made by the Sumerians, and were used for drinking beer,probably to avoid the solid byproducts of fermentation that sink to the bottom.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.