diff --git a/talon/utils.py b/talon/utils.py
index 845b149..0e50c8f 100644
--- a/talon/utils.py
+++ b/talon/utils.py
@@ -121,8 +121,11 @@ def html_to_text(string):
         1. the string is expected to contain UTF-8 encoded HTML!
         2. returns utf-8 encoded str (not unicode)
     """
+    if isinstance(string, six.text_type):
+        string = string.encode('utf8')
+
     s = _prepend_utf8_declaration(string)
-    s = s.replace("\n", "")
+    s = s.replace(b"\n", b"")
 
     tree = html.fromstring(s)
 
@@ -157,7 +160,7 @@ def html_to_text(string):
 def _contains_charset_spec(s):
     """Return True if the first 4KB contain charset spec
     """
-    return s.lower().find('html; charset=', 0, 4096) != -1
+    return s.lower().find(b'html; charset=', 0, 4096) != -1
 
 
 def _prepend_utf8_declaration(s):
@@ -178,8 +181,8 @@ def _encode_utf8(s):
     return s.encode('utf-8') if isinstance(s, six.text_type) else s
 
 
-_UTF8_DECLARATION = ('<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;'
-                     'charset=utf-8">')
+_UTF8_DECLARATION = (b'<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;'
+                     b'charset=utf-8">')
 
 
 _BLOCKTAGS  = ['div', 'p', 'ul', 'li', 'h1', 'h2', 'h3']
diff --git a/tests/html_quotations_test.py b/tests/html_quotations_test.py
index 5794545..c155cbb 100644
--- a/tests/html_quotations_test.py
+++ b/tests/html_quotations_test.py
@@ -306,6 +306,7 @@ def extract_reply_and_check(filename):
     msg_body = f.read()
     reply = quotations.extract_from_html(msg_body)
     plain_reply = u.html_to_text(reply)
+    plain_reply = plain_reply.decode('utf8')
 
     eq_(RE_WHITESPACE.sub('', "Hi. I am fine.\n\nThanks,\nAlex"),
         RE_WHITESPACE.sub('', plain_reply))