diff --git a/history.md b/history.md
index 4a46081..b539368 100644
--- a/history.md
+++ b/history.md
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
 - added parameter passing for get request using the :param key in header
 - the warning about the logger when using a string was a bad idea
 - multipart parameters names should not be escaped
+- remove the cookie escaping introduced by migrating to CGI cookie parsing in 1.5.1
 
 # 1.5.1
 
diff --git a/lib/restclient/abstract_response.rb b/lib/restclient/abstract_response.rb
index 0c65ee7..813a06b 100644
--- a/lib/restclient/abstract_response.rb
+++ b/lib/restclient/abstract_response.rb
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ module RestClient
       @cookies ||= (self.headers[:set_cookie] || {}).inject({}) do |out, cookie_content|
         CGI::Cookie::parse(cookie_content).each do |key, cookie|
           unless ['expires', 'path'].include? key
-            out[key] = cookie.value[0] || ''
+            out[CGI::escape(key)] = cookie.value[0] ? (CGI::escape(cookie.value[0]) || '') : ''
           end
         end
         out
diff --git a/lib/restclient/request.rb b/lib/restclient/request.rb
index 609366d..eb7135e 100644
--- a/lib/restclient/request.rb
+++ b/lib/restclient/request.rb
@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ module RestClient
 
     def make_headers user_headers
       unless @cookies.empty?
-        user_headers[:cookie] = @cookies.map { |(key, val)| "#{key.to_s}=#{val}" }.sort.join(';')
+        user_headers[:cookie] = @cookies.map { |(key, val)| "#{key.to_s}=#{CGI::unescape(val)}" }.sort.join(';')
       end
       headers = stringify_headers(default_headers).merge(stringify_headers(user_headers))
       headers.merge!(@payload.headers) if @payload
diff --git a/spec/abstract_response_spec.rb b/spec/abstract_response_spec.rb
index 6e95581..56f3a97 100644
--- a/spec/abstract_response_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/abstract_response_spec.rb
@@ -53,7 +53,12 @@ describe RestClient::AbstractResponse do
 
   it "extract strange cookies" do
     @net_http_res.should_receive(:to_hash).and_return('set-cookie' => ['session_id=ZJ/HQVH6YE+rVkTpn0zvTQ==; path=/'])
-    @response.cookies.should == { 'session_id' => 'ZJ/HQVH6YE rVkTpn0zvTQ==' }
+    @response.cookies.should == { 'session_id' => 'ZJ%2FHQVH6YE+rVkTpn0zvTQ%3D%3D' }
+  end
+
+  it "doesn't escape cookies" do
+    @net_http_res.should_receive(:to_hash).and_return('set-cookie' => ['session_id=BAh7BzoNYXBwX25hbWUiEGFwcGxpY2F0aW9uOgpsb2dpbiIKYWRtaW4%3D%0A--08114ba654f17c04d20dcc5228ec672508f738ca; path=/'])
+    @response.cookies.should == { 'session_id' => 'BAh7BzoNYXBwX25hbWUiEGFwcGxpY2F0aW9uOgpsb2dpbiIKYWRtaW4%3D%0A--08114ba654f17c04d20dcc5228ec672508f738ca' }
   end
 
   it "can access the net http result directly" do