diff --git a/clients/src/main/java/org/apache/kafka/clients/Metadata.java b/clients/src/main/java/org/apache/kafka/clients/Metadata.java
index 231593d9e9a81..042a9cecd8138 100644
--- a/clients/src/main/java/org/apache/kafka/clients/Metadata.java
+++ b/clients/src/main/java/org/apache/kafka/clients/Metadata.java
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ public Metadata(long refreshBackoffMs,
                     long metadataExpireMs,
                     LogContext logContext,
                     ClusterResourceListeners clusterResourceListeners) {
-        this(refreshBackoffMs, metadataExpireMs, logContext, clusterResourceListeners, Long.MAX_VALUE);
+        this(refreshBackoffMs, metadataExpireMs, logContext, clusterResourceListeners, -1);
     }
 
     public Metadata(long refreshBackoffMs,
@@ -141,7 +141,8 @@ public synchronized void incrementNodesTriedSinceLastSuccessfulRefresh() {
      * has been set by receiving stale metadata from a different cluster
      */
     public synchronized boolean shouldUpdateClusterMetadataFromBootstrap(long nowMs) {
-        return (this.nodesTriedSinceLastSuccessfulRefresh >= 1 &&
+        return this.maxClusterMetadataExpireTimeMs > 0 &&
+            (this.nodesTriedSinceLastSuccessfulRefresh >= 1 &&
             (this.lastRefreshMs != 0 && this.lastSuccessfulRefreshMs + this.maxClusterMetadataExpireTimeMs <= nowMs)) ||
             this.forceClusterMetadataUpdateFromBootstrap;
     }