diff --git a/doc/whats-new.rst b/doc/whats-new.rst
index 901085acbdd..17af655c02e 100644
--- a/doc/whats-new.rst
+++ b/doc/whats-new.rst
@@ -69,6 +69,8 @@ Bug fixes
   By `Kai Mühlbauer <https://github.com/kmuehlbauer>`_.
 - Remove dask-expr from CI runs, add "pyarrow" dask dependency to windows CI runs, fix related tests (:issue:`9962`, :pull:`9971`).
   By `Kai Mühlbauer <https://github.com/kmuehlbauer>`_.
+- Use zarr-fixture to prevent thread leakage errors (:pull:`9967`).
+  By `Kai Mühlbauer <https://github.com/kmuehlbauer>`_.
 
 Documentation
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
diff --git a/xarray/tests/test_distributed.py b/xarray/tests/test_distributed.py
index 9d68d1899d8..e4fdf08d0b4 100644
--- a/xarray/tests/test_distributed.py
+++ b/xarray/tests/test_distributed.py
@@ -21,7 +21,9 @@
 from distributed.client import futures_of
 from distributed.utils_test import (  # noqa: F401
     cleanup,
+    client,
     cluster,
+    cluster_fixture,
     gen_cluster,
     loop,
     loop_in_thread,
@@ -46,6 +48,7 @@
 from xarray.tests.test_dataset import create_test_data
 
 loop = loop  # loop is an imported fixture, which flake8 has issues ack-ing
+client = client  # client is an imported fixture, which flake8 has issues ack-ing
 
 
 @pytest.fixture
@@ -214,11 +217,41 @@ def test_dask_distributed_read_netcdf_integration_test(
                 assert_allclose(original, computed)
 
 
+# fixture vendored from dask
+# heads-up, this is using quite private zarr API
+# https://github.com/dask/dask/blob/e04734b4d8959ba259801f2e2a490cb4ee8d891f/dask/tests/test_distributed.py#L338-L358
+@pytest.fixture(scope="function")
+def zarr(client):
+    zarr_lib = pytest.importorskip("zarr")
+    # Zarr-Python 3 lazily allocates a dedicated thread/IO loop
+    # for to execute async tasks. To avoid having this thread
+    # be picked up as a "leaked thread", we manually trigger it's
+    # creation before using zarr
+    try:
+        _ = zarr_lib.core.sync._get_loop()
+        _ = zarr_lib.core.sync._get_executor()
+        yield zarr_lib
+    except AttributeError:
+        yield zarr_lib
+    finally:
+        # Zarr-Python 3 lazily allocates a IO thread, a thread pool executor, and
+        # an IO loop. Here we clean up these resources to avoid leaking threads
+        # In normal operations, this is done as by an atexit handler when Zarr
+        # is shutting down.
+        try:
+            zarr_lib.core.sync.cleanup_resources()
+        except AttributeError:
+            pass
+
+
 @requires_zarr
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("consolidated", [True, False])
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("compute", [True, False])
 def test_dask_distributed_zarr_integration_test(
-    loop, consolidated: bool, compute: bool
+    client,
+    zarr,
+    consolidated: bool,
+    compute: bool,
 ) -> None:
     if consolidated:
         write_kwargs: dict[str, Any] = {"consolidated": True}
@@ -226,23 +259,19 @@ def test_dask_distributed_zarr_integration_test(
     else:
         write_kwargs = read_kwargs = {}
     chunks = {"dim1": 4, "dim2": 3, "dim3": 5}
-    with cluster() as (s, [a, b]):
-        with Client(s["address"], loop=loop):
-            original = create_test_data().chunk(chunks)
-            with create_tmp_file(
-                allow_cleanup_failure=ON_WINDOWS, suffix=".zarrc"
-            ) as filename:
-                maybe_futures = original.to_zarr(  # type: ignore[call-overload]  #mypy bug?
-                    filename, compute=compute, **write_kwargs
-                )
-                if not compute:
-                    maybe_futures.compute()
-                with xr.open_dataset(
-                    filename, chunks="auto", engine="zarr", **read_kwargs
-                ) as restored:
-                    assert isinstance(restored.var1.data, da.Array)
-                    computed = restored.compute()
-                    assert_allclose(original, computed)
+    original = create_test_data().chunk(chunks)
+    with create_tmp_file(allow_cleanup_failure=ON_WINDOWS, suffix=".zarrc") as filename:
+        maybe_futures = original.to_zarr(  # type: ignore[call-overload]  #mypy bug?
+            filename, compute=compute, **write_kwargs
+        )
+        if not compute:
+            maybe_futures.compute()
+        with xr.open_dataset(
+            filename, chunks="auto", engine="zarr", **read_kwargs
+        ) as restored:
+            assert isinstance(restored.var1.data, da.Array)
+            computed = restored.compute()
+            assert_allclose(original, computed)
 
 
 @gen_cluster(client=True)