diff --git a/make_mirror.sh b/make_mirror.sh
index 0e1c15b..6506153 100755
--- a/make_mirror.sh
+++ b/make_mirror.sh
@@ -660,6 +660,7 @@ for dist in oldstable stable testing unstable; do
 set -eu
 export LC_ALL=C.UTF-8
 export SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=$SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
+echo "SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=\$SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH"
 tmpdir="\$(mktemp -d)"
 chmod 755 "\$tmpdir"
 debootstrap --no-merged-usr --variant=$variant $dist "\$tmpdir" $mirror
diff --git a/tests/check-against-debootstrap-dist b/tests/check-against-debootstrap-dist
index 2bdaa30..442d529 100644
--- a/tests/check-against-debootstrap-dist
+++ b/tests/check-against-debootstrap-dist
@@ -3,6 +3,8 @@ set -eu
 export LC_ALL=C.UTF-8
 export SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH={{ SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH }}
 
+echo "SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=$SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH"
+
 # we create the apt user ourselves or otherwise its uid/gid will differ
 # compared to the one chosen in debootstrap because of different installation
 # order in comparison to the systemd users