typing a tab character within a shell?

[inetd]

How can I type a tab character in bash shell?

for example:
I want to delete all the line(s) that starting with a tab character using sed.

cat file.txt|sed '/^[tab]/d'
^^^


Thanks.

 

[danielhozac]

I tend to use [tt]echo -e \t[/tt], or pressing CTRL+V and then pressing the tab button. //Daniel