Brian Koba was minding his own business—hairdressing—when one of his clients issued a challenge that changed his life. The client—radio food commentator Mauny Kaseberg—had just tasted some of Koba’s homemade barbecue sauce and insisted that he create an über-sauce that would rescue the masses from ordinary bottled fare. Koba took up the challenge and soon found himself both the proprietor of a new business—SumSay Sauces—and a barbecue Grand Champion many times over.

Championship BBQ by Koba 1217 S Angelo Street, 764-0699 Mon-Fri, noon-3 cash, checks

It all began with what Koba, in a voice so modest it dips occasionally into near-inaudibility, describes as “something with a garlic-onion puree, using soy as seasoning,” which distills, from his Japanese-American heritage, an “East meets West” flavor.

SumSay Sauces began bottling on November 4, 1994. Koba still keeps his first official jar on display, along with numerous trophies he’s received for winning barbecue competitions around the US and Canada—including that Olympics of barbecue, the American Royal International Sauce contest in Kansas City.

Koba recalls his trophy days fondly. “After beating every competitor in town, you get invited to the American Royal, the biggest barbecue competition in the world. They treat Grand Champions like kings there.” His voice softens, caressing the memory. “Imagine four-and-a-half miles of solid barbecue. Someday you have to see it—it’ll blow you away.”

These days, there is less time for swaggering into the heat of competition now that Koba has turned . . . well, pro. “I still compete, but the business has taken over my time.” Steady sales of SumSay Sauces—the best-selling Garlic Ginger, the much decorated Whiskey Sour, the people’s choice Sum Plum—have given Koba the luxury of regarding his salon as a creative outlet. “I cut hair on a very limited basis now. Only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in the morning or afternoon. My hair clients have to be flexible.”

As do his barbecue clients. Seven months ago, Koba started selling racks of ribs, sandwiches, and fixings out of a tiny shack he squeezed into a space next to the salon. Business hours are from noon to 3, weekdays only. “I was trying to find the right restaurant space for years, but someone told me, ‘Build it, and they will come.'”

And they have: uptown doctors, lawyers, businessmen, blue-collar workers, Boeing engineers, artists who live in the neighborhood—just about anyone who manages not to get lost along the way. They come despite the fact that there is no place to sit except outside, next to a smoker, in one of six plastic chairs pushed against a plastic table.

On my first visit, I took a wrong turn and ended up on the freeway headed back downtown. When I finally got to the shack, it was raining, and Koba’s right-hand man, Paul Shu, offered washcloths to wipe the chair off.

My first Koba BBQ is a beef brisket sandwich ($4.95) anointed with a tingling, savory-sweet, gingery sauce. I chew carefully and plan to eat sparingly, in order to avoid returning to work in a food coma. But I can’t stop eating, even as the rain mists the top of the toasted onion roll.

After the roll succumbs to the elements, I pick out every scrap of meat. I scrape up every spicy jalapeño baked bean. I hoard the cole slaw, to make it last. (By comparison, other slaws seem crude, earthbound.) Koba lightens his slaw with sesame seed and ginger, adding just enough mayo to keep it within the bounds of the genre.

The pork sandwich ($4.95) is as gratifying as the beef; flavors are more piquant and sport a faint fruity tang. The sauce on the spicy chicken wings ($4.99/dozen) tastes like intensely fresh tomato, with unmistakable heat that stops just short of overwhelming. The rack of beef ribs ($9.99) is served with a side of zesty, sweet sauce. Listing the ingredients in the sauce—plum pulp, tomato, hoisin, ginger, natural fruit—doesn’t come close to describing their combined effect, which is inspired. Yet the pork spareribs ($5.99/pound) are my favorite—though I’d be hard-pressed to say why, except that I want them, right now! I’m not alone: 300 slabs have left the tiny shack in the last six weeks.

In all the meats, the flesh is tender, infused with the sweet smoke of apple and cherry woods. Barbecue, it bears repeating, has nothing to do with fire but everything to do with smoke. “I have to say this over and over,” says Koba animatedly. “We do barbecue. We don’t grill. Barbecue is slow and low. On the grill is just fast food to go.” Barbecue is a long-time relationship, lovingly stoked. Grilling is a one-night stand, a cheap quickie.

Each Koba sauce has a signature subtlety, a small difference distinguishing it from its siblings. What they all share—Garlic Ginger, Whiskey Sour, Sum Plum, Orange Clove, Spicy Lemon, and Apple Ginger—is the ability to bloom against the tongue with a gratifying, full-on intensity. Yet there is no lingering aftertaste, no exhausting of taste buds, no accompanying thirst. This is clean barbecue—the first not to give me heartburn. Moreover, Koba’s sauces are low in sodium—160 milligrams—a far and healthy cry from the average 800 to 1200 milligrams.

Sometime in September, Koba’s shack will be open longer hours. Between 3 and 6, those who call ahead can pick up “party-to-go packages” of beef, chicken, and hot links, along with new side dishes like macaroni salad, horseradish slaw, and red beans and rice. The betting here is that customers will demand more, more, and more.

SumSay Sauces (retail $3.79 to $4.39) are available locally at Larry’s Market, Queen Anne and Admiral Thriftways, Don and Joe’s, Mutual Fish, and various Associated Grocer’s stores.