How to search for all tabs between two quotation marks with grep / egrep

I'm looking for all tabs between two quotation marks with grep / egrep in a bash. I tried grep -r . -e "\".*\t.*\"" grep -r . -e "\".*\\t.*\"" grep -r . -e "\".*\\\\t.*\"" grep -r . -e '\".*\t.*\"' grep -r . -e '\".*\\t.*\"' grep -r . -e '".*\t.*"' grep -r . -e '".*\\t.*"' But I don't get the desired result. Following greps yield all line with a \t: grep -r . -e "\".*\\\\t.*\"" grep -r . -e '\".*\\t.*\"' grep -r . -e '".*\\t.*"' Following greps yield all line with a t: grep -r . -e "\".*\t.*\"" grep -r . -e "\".*\\t.*\"" grep -r . -e '".*\t.*"' grep -r . -e '\".*\t.*\"' But none of these searches for a real tabulator. What I'm doing wrong?