diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 2349ff9..75f9a7f 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -283,6 +283,9 @@
         <commons.release.version>1.3.2</commons.release.version>
         <commons.rc.version>RC1</commons.rc.version>
         <commons.binary.suffix>-bin</commons.binary.suffix>
+
+        <!-- override the default commons encoding property -->
+        <commons.encoding>UTF-8</commons.encoding>
     </properties> 
 
     <build>
diff --git a/src/test/java/org/apache/commons/mail/SimpleEmailTest.java b/src/test/java/org/apache/commons/mail/SimpleEmailTest.java
index 24f4434..a134712 100644
--- a/src/test/java/org/apache/commons/mail/SimpleEmailTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/org/apache/commons/mail/SimpleEmailTest.java
@@ -155,7 +155,7 @@
 
         String message = getMessageAsString(0);
         // check that the charset has been correctly set
-        assertTrue(message.contains("Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8"));
+        assertTrue(message.toLowerCase().contains("content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8"));
 
         System.clearProperty(EmailConstants.MAIL_MIME_CHARSET);
     }