diff --git a/include/rocksdb/persistent_cache.h b/include/rocksdb/persistent_cache.h
index ef49da5ab..8d01fa1bd 100644
--- a/include/rocksdb/persistent_cache.h
+++ b/include/rocksdb/persistent_cache.h
@@ -9,7 +9,9 @@
 
 #include <stdint.h>
 #include <memory>
+#include <string>
 
+#include "rocksdb/env.h"
 #include "rocksdb/slice.h"
 #include "rocksdb/statistics.h"
 #include "rocksdb/status.h"
@@ -46,4 +48,10 @@ class PersistentCache {
   virtual bool IsCompressed() = 0;
 };
 
+// Factor method to create a new persistent cache
+Status NewPersistentCache(Env* const env, const std::string& path,
+                          const uint64_t size,
+                          const std::shared_ptr<Logger>& log,
+                          const bool optimized_for_nvm,
+                          std::shared_ptr<PersistentCache>* cache);
 }  // namespace rocksdb
diff --git a/utilities/persistent_cache/block_cache_tier.cc b/utilities/persistent_cache/block_cache_tier.cc
index 02b90e68d..49a70174c 100644
--- a/utilities/persistent_cache/block_cache_tier.cc
+++ b/utilities/persistent_cache/block_cache_tier.cc
@@ -359,6 +359,36 @@ bool BlockCacheTier::Reserve(const size_t size) {
   return true;
 }
 
+Status NewPersistentCache(Env* const env, const std::string& path,
+                          const uint64_t size,
+                          const std::shared_ptr<Logger>& log,
+                          const bool optimized_for_nvm,
+                          std::shared_ptr<PersistentCache>* cache) {
+  if (!cache) {
+    return Status::IOError("invalid argument cache");
+  }
+
+  auto opt = PersistentCacheConfig(env, path, size, log);
+  if (optimized_for_nvm) {
+    // the default settings are optimized for SSD
+    // NVM devices are better accessed with 4K direct IO and written with
+    // parallelism
+    opt.enable_direct_writes = true;
+    opt.writer_qdepth = 4;
+    opt.writer_dispatch_size = 4 * 1024;
+  }
+
+  auto pcache = std::make_shared<BlockCacheTier>(opt);
+  Status s = pcache->Open();
+
+  if (!s.ok()) {
+    return s;
+  }
+
+  *cache = pcache;
+  return s;
+}
+
 }  // namespace rocksdb
 
 #endif  // ifndef ROCKSDB_LITE
diff --git a/utilities/persistent_cache/block_cache_tier.h b/utilities/persistent_cache/block_cache_tier.h
index cc917c0f4..9330d0538 100644
--- a/utilities/persistent_cache/block_cache_tier.h
+++ b/utilities/persistent_cache/block_cache_tier.h
@@ -49,8 +49,8 @@ class BlockCacheTier : public PersistentCacheTier {
   }
 
   virtual ~BlockCacheTier() {
-    // By contract, the user should have called stop before destroying the
-    // object
+    // Close is re-entrant so we can call close even if it is already closed
+    Close();
     assert(!insert_th_.joinable());
   }
 
diff --git a/utilities/persistent_cache/persistent_cache_test.cc b/utilities/persistent_cache/persistent_cache_test.cc
index ad4a6fd59..0d8ab6971 100644
--- a/utilities/persistent_cache/persistent_cache_test.cc
+++ b/utilities/persistent_cache/persistent_cache_test.cc
@@ -235,6 +235,19 @@ static void UniqueIdCallback(void* arg) {
 }
 #endif
 
+TEST_F(PersistentCacheTierTest, FactoryTest) {
+  for (auto nvm_opt : {true, false}) {
+    ASSERT_FALSE(cache_);
+    auto log = std::make_shared<ConsoleLogger>();
+    std::shared_ptr<PersistentCache> cache;
+    ASSERT_OK(NewPersistentCache(Env::Default(), path_,
+                                 /*size=*/1 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024, log, nvm_opt,
+                                 &cache));
+    ASSERT_TRUE(cache);
+    cache.reset();
+  }
+}
+
 PersistentCacheDBTest::PersistentCacheDBTest() : DBTestBase("/cache_test") {
 #ifdef OS_LINUX
   rocksdb::SyncPoint::GetInstance()->EnableProcessing();
@@ -403,6 +416,7 @@ TEST_F(PersistentCacheDBTest, TieredCacheTest) {
   RunTest(std::bind(&MakeTieredCache, dbname_));
 }
 #endif
+
 }  // namespace rocksdb
 
 int main(int argc, char** argv) {