diff --git a/manifests/db/mysql.pp b/manifests/db/mysql.pp
index 30cc832..d1d7ceb 100644
--- a/manifests/db/mysql.pp
+++ b/manifests/db/mysql.pp
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ class heat::db::mysql(
   $user          = 'heat',
   $host          = 'localhost',
   $allowed_hosts = undef,
-  $charset       = 'latin1',
+  $charset       = 'utf8',
 ) {
 
   validate_string($password)