diff --git a/pykolab/auth/ldap/auth_cache.py b/pykolab/auth/ldap/auth_cache.py
--- a/pykolab/auth/ldap/auth_cache.py
+++ b/pykolab/auth/ldap/auth_cache.py
@@ -25,8 +25,8 @@
 from sqlalchemy import DateTime
 from sqlalchemy import Integer
 from sqlalchemy import MetaData
-from sqlalchemy import String
-from sqlalchemy import Text
+from sqlalchemy import Unicode
+from sqlalchemy import UnicodeText
 
 from sqlalchemy import create_engine
 from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base
@@ -62,9 +62,9 @@
     __tablename__ = 'entries'
 
     id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True)
-    domain = Column(String(256), index=True, nullable=True)
-    key = Column(Text, index=True, nullable=False)
-    value = Column(Text, nullable=False)
+    domain = Column(Unicode(256), index=True, nullable=True)
+    key = Column(UnicodeText, index=True, nullable=False)
+    value = Column(UnicodeText, nullable=False)
     last_change = Column(DateTime, nullable=False, default=datetime.datetime.now())
 
     def __init__(self, key, value):
@@ -134,7 +134,7 @@
     log.debug("Entry found: %r" % (__entries[0].__dict__))
     log.debug("Returning: %r" % (__entries[0].value))
 
-    return __entries[0].value.encode('utf-8', 'latin1')
+    return __entries[0].value
 
 
 def set_entry(key, value):