diff --git a/swh/journal/client.py b/swh/journal/client.py
index e2a817d..d661aa1 100644
--- a/swh/journal/client.py
+++ b/swh/journal/client.py
@@ -1,103 +1,107 @@
 # Copyright (C) 2017  The Software Heritage developers
 # See the AUTHORS file at the top-level directory of this distribution
 # License: GNU General Public License version 3, or any later version
 # See top-level LICENSE file for more information
 
 import logging
 
 from abc import ABCMeta, abstractmethod
 from collections import defaultdict
 from kafka import KafkaConsumer
 
 from swh.core.config import SWHConfig
 from .serializers import kafka_to_value
 
 
 class SWHJournalClient(SWHConfig, metaclass=ABCMeta):
     """A base client for the Software Heritage journal.
 
     The current implementation of the journal uses Apache Kafka
     brokers to publish messages under a given topic prefix, with each
     object type using a specific topic under that prefix.
 
     Clients subscribe to events specific to each object type by using
     the `object_types` configuration variable.
 
     Clients can be sharded by setting the `client_id` to a common
     value across instances. The journal will share the message
     throughput across the nodes sharing the same client_id.
 
     Messages are processed by the `process_objects` method in batches
     of maximum `max_messages`.
 
     """
     DEFAULT_CONFIG = {
         # Broker to connect to
         'brokers': ('list[str]', ['localhost']),
         # Prefix topic to receive notification from
         'topic_prefix': ('str', 'swh.journal.test_publisher'),
         # Consumer identifier
         'consumer_id': ('str', 'swh.journal.client.test'),
         # Object types to deal with (in a subscription manner)
         'object_types': ('list[str]', [
             'content', 'revision', 'release', 'occurrence',
             'origin', 'origin_visit']),
         # Number of messages to batch process
         'max_messages': ('int', 100),
+        'auto_offset_reset': ('str', 'earliest')
     }
 
     CONFIG_BASE_FILENAME = 'journal/client'
 
     ADDITIONAL_CONFIG = None
 
     def __init__(self, extra_configuration={}):
         self.config = self.parse_config_file(
             additional_configs=[self.ADDITIONAL_CONFIG])
         if extra_configuration:
             self.config.update(extra_configuration)
 
         self.log = logging.getLogger('swh.journal.client.SWHJournalClient')
 
+        auto_offset_reset = self.config['auto_offset_reset']
+        assert auto_offset_reset in ['earliest', 'latest']
+
         self.consumer = KafkaConsumer(
             bootstrap_servers=self.config['brokers'],
             value_deserializer=kafka_to_value,
-            auto_offset_reset='earliest',
+            auto_offset_reset=auto_offset_reset,
             enable_auto_commit=False,
             group_id=self.config['consumer_id'],
         )
 
         self.consumer.subscribe(
             topics=['%s.%s' % (self.config['topic_prefix'], object_type)
                     for object_type in self.config['object_types']],
         )
 
         self.max_messages = self.config['max_messages']
 
     def process(self):
         """Main entry point to process event message reception.
 
         """
         while True:
             messages = defaultdict(list)
 
             for num, message in enumerate(self.consumer):
                 object_type = message.topic.split('.')[-1]
                 messages[object_type].append(message.value)
                 if num >= self.max_messages:
                     break
 
             self.process_objects(messages)
             self.consumer.commit()
 
     # Override the following method in the sub-classes
 
     @abstractmethod
     def process_objects(self, messages):
         """Process the objects (store, compute, etc...)
 
         Args:
             messages (dict): Dict of key object_type (as per
             configuration) and their associated values.
 
         """
         pass