diff --git a/dissect/cstruct/expression.py b/dissect/cstruct/expression.py
index 53e1cf2..4727f26 100644
--- a/dissect/cstruct/expression.py
+++ b/dissect/cstruct/expression.py
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 from __future__ import annotations
 
 import string
-from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Callable, Optional, Union
+from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Callable, Optional
 
 from dissect.cstruct.exceptions import ExpressionParserError, ExpressionTokenizerError
 
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ def __init__(self, expression: str):
         self.pos = 0
         self.tokens = []
 
-    def equal(self, token: str, expected: Union[str, str[str]]) -> bool:
+    def equal(self, token: str, expected: str | set[str]) -> bool:
         if isinstance(expected, set):
             return token in expected
         else:
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ def operator(self, token: str) -> bool:
     def match(
         self,
         func: Optional[Callable[[str], bool]] = None,
-        expected: Optional[str] = None,
+        expected: Optional[str | set[str]] = None,
         consume: bool = True,
         append: bool = True,
     ) -> bool:
@@ -142,7 +142,7 @@ def tokenize(self) -> list[str]:
                 self.tokens.append(">>")
             elif self.match(expected="<", append=False) and self.match(expected="<", append=False):
                 self.tokens.append("<<")
-            elif self.match(expected=" ", append=False):
+            elif self.match(expected={" ", "\t"}, append=False):
                 continue
             else:
                 raise ExpressionTokenizerError(
diff --git a/tests/test_expression.py b/tests/test_expression.py
index c1d0fc0..1495ecf 100644
--- a/tests/test_expression.py
+++ b/tests/test_expression.py
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
     ("7*8", 56),
     ("7 *8", 56),
     ("   7  *     8  ", 56),
+    ("\t7\t*\t8\t", 56),
     ("0 / 1", 0),
     ("1 / 1", 1),
     ("2 / 2", 1),