Blocking on cache reads beyond the first is just plain rude in my opinion, so refresh in the background.

Non-Blocking Guava Cache

http://www.theotherian.com/2013/11/non-blocking-cache-with-guava-and-listenable-futures.html

NonBlockingCache.java

package com.theotherian.cache;

import java.util.concurrent.Callable;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
import java.util.concurrent.ThreadFactory;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicInteger;

import com.google.common.cache.CacheBuilder;
import com.google.common.cache.CacheLoader;
import com.google.common.cache.LoadingCache;
import com.google.common.util.concurrent.ListenableFuture;
import com.google.common.util.concurrent.ListeningExecutorService;
import com.google.common.util.concurrent.MoreExecutors;
import com.google.common.util.concurrent.ThreadFactoryBuilder;

public class NonBlockingCache {
  
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    
    final AtomicInteger value = new AtomicInteger(1);

    // nicely named threads are nice
    ThreadFactory threadFactory = new ThreadFactoryBuilder().setNameFormat("MyCacheRefresher-pool-%d").setDaemon(true).build();
    ExecutorService parentExecutor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor(threadFactory);
    
    // create an executor that provide ListenableFuture instances
    final ListeningExecutorService executorService = MoreExecutors.listeningDecorator(parentExecutor);

    final LoadingCache<String, Integer> cache = CacheBuilder.newBuilder()
        .maximumSize(1)
        // the cache will try to refresh any entry after it's first written if it's accessed more than 10 seconds
        // after the last write
        .refreshAfterWrite(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
        .build(
            new CacheLoader<String, Integer>() {
              public Integer load(String key) throws Exception {
                Thread.sleep(5000);
                System.out.println("RELOADING!");
                return value.getAndIncrement();
              }
              @Override
              public ListenableFuture<Integer> reload(final String key, Integer oldValue) throws Exception {
                // we need to load new values asynchronously, so that calls to read values from the cache don't block
                ListenableFuture<Integer> listenableFuture = executorService.submit(new Callable<Integer>() {

                  @Override
                  public Integer call() throws Exception {
                    System.out.println("Async reload event");
                    return load(key);
                  }
                });
                return listenableFuture;
              }
            });

    for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
      long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
      Integer unchecked = cache.getUnchecked("foo");
      System.out.printf("Took %dms to load result %d: %d\n", (System.currentTimeMillis() - start), (i + 1), unchecked);
      Thread.sleep(1000);
    }
    
  }

}