diff --git a/compat/win32/fscache.c b/compat/win32/fscache.c
index 2f76b2eba5..abc924bbcd 100644
--- a/compat/win32/fscache.c
+++ b/compat/win32/fscache.c
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 #include "../../hashmap.h"
 #include "../win32.h"
 #include "fscache.h"
+#include "config.h"
 
 static int initialized;
 static volatile long enabled;
@@ -393,7 +394,11 @@ int fscache_enable(int enable)
 	int result;
 
 	if (!initialized) {
+		int fscache = git_env_bool("GIT_TEST_FSCACHE", -1);
+
 		/* allow the cache to be disabled entirely */
+		if (fscache != -1)
+			core_fscache = fscache;
 		if (!core_fscache)
 			return 0;
 
diff --git a/t/README b/t/README
index a8cfd37387..6bd4bb66fe 100644
--- a/t/README
+++ b/t/README
@@ -443,6 +443,9 @@ GIT_TEST_CHECKOUT_WORKERS=<n> overrides the 'checkout.workers' setting
 to <n> and 'checkout.thresholdForParallelism' to 0, forcing the
 execution of the parallel-checkout code.
 
+GIT_TEST_FSCACHE=<boolean> exercises the uncommon fscache code path
+which adds a cache below mingw's lstat and dirent implementations.
+
 Naming Tests
 ------------