diff --git a/src/cachelib/redis.py b/src/cachelib/redis.py
index 99498b74..7400c1f5 100644
--- a/src/cachelib/redis.py
+++ b/src/cachelib/redis.py
@@ -26,6 +26,8 @@ class RedisCache(BaseCache):
     Any additional keyword arguments will be passed to ``redis.Redis``.
     """
 
+    _read_client = None
+    _write_client = None
     serializer = RedisSerializer()
 
     def __init__(