diff --git a/git-send-email.perl b/git-send-email.perl
index 0b04ba32f..385ff7c21 100755
--- a/git-send-email.perl
+++ b/git-send-email.perl
@@ -850,7 +850,7 @@ sub send_message
 				}
 				elsif (/^Content-type:/i) {
 					$has_content_type = 1;
-					if (/charset="?[^ "]+/) {
+					if (/charset="?([^ "]+)/) {
 						$body_encoding = $1;
 					}
 					push @xh, $_;