diff --git a/index.js b/index.js
index be6e5b1..5658f2c 100644
--- a/index.js
+++ b/index.js
@@ -236,16 +236,41 @@ function mimeMatch (expected, actual) {
  */
 
 function normalizeType (value) {
-  // parse the type
-  var type = typer.parse(value)
+  // Support passing `req-like` or `res-like` objects as argument,
+  // for backward compatibility.
+  if (typeof value === 'object') {
+    value = getcontenttype(value);
+  }
 
-  // remove the parameters
-  type.parameters = undefined
+  // Exclude parameters.
+  var index = value.indexOf(';')
+  if (index !== -1) {
+    value = value.slice(0, index)
+  }
+  // Content-type headers might use '\t' for whitespace,
+  // which is not supported by typer.parse, so we must trim.
+  value = value.trim()
+  var type = typer.parse(value)
 
   // reformat it
   return typer.format(type)
 }
 
+/**
+ * Copied from `media-typer` 0.3.0
+ */
+function getcontenttype(obj) {
+  if (typeof obj.getHeader === 'function') {
+    // res-like
+    return obj.getHeader('content-type')
+  }
+
+  if (typeof obj.headers === 'object') {
+    // req-like
+    return obj.headers && obj.headers['content-type']
+  }
+}
+
 /**
  * Try to normalize a type and remove parameters.
  *
diff --git a/test/test.js b/test/test.js
index 4443196..1ad2274 100644
--- a/test/test.js
+++ b/test/test.js
@@ -13,6 +13,11 @@ describe('typeis(req, types)', function () {
     assert.strictEqual(typeis(req, ['text/*']), 'text/html')
   })
 
+  it('should support tabs in LWS', function () {
+    var req = createRequest('text/html\t;\tcharset=utf-8')
+    assert.strictEqual(typeis(req, ['text/*']), 'text/html')
+  })
+
   it('should ignore casing', function () {
     var req = createRequest('text/HTML')
     assert.strictEqual(typeis(req, ['text/*']), 'text/html')
@@ -301,6 +306,13 @@ describe('typeis.is(mediaType, types)', function () {
       assert.strictEqual(typeis.is(req, ['jpeg']), false)
     })
 
+    it('should ignore parameters in content-type header', function () {
+      var req = createRequest('application/json;\tencoding=utf-8')
+
+      assert.strictEqual(typeis.is(req, ['json']), 'json')
+      assert.strictEqual(typeis.is(req, ['text']), false)
+    })
+
     it('should not check for body', function () {
       var req = { headers: { 'content-type': 'text/html' } }