diff --git a/swh/deposit/api/private/__init__.py b/swh/deposit/api/private/__init__.py
--- a/swh/deposit/api/private/__init__.py
+++ b/swh/deposit/api/private/__init__.py
@@ -1,15 +1,16 @@
-# Copyright (C) 2017-2019 The Software Heritage developers
+# Copyright (C) 2017-2020 The Software Heritage developers
 # See the AUTHORS file at the top-level directory of this distribution
 # License: GNU General Public License version 3, or any later version
 # See top-level LICENSE file for more information
 
-from swh.deposit import utils
+from typing import Dict, List
+
+from rest_framework.permissions import AllowAny
 
 from ...config import METADATA_TYPE, SWHDefaultConfig
 from ...models import DepositRequest, Deposit
 
-from rest_framework.permissions import AllowAny
-
+from swh.deposit import utils
 from swh.deposit.api.common import SWHAPIView
 from swh.deposit.errors import make_error_dict, NOT_FOUND
 
@@ -40,7 +41,7 @@
         for deposit_request in deposit_requests:
             yield deposit_request
 
-    def _metadata_get(self, deposit):
+    def _metadata_get(self, deposit: Deposit) -> Dict:
         """Given a deposit, aggregate all metadata requests.
 
         Args:
@@ -57,6 +58,22 @@
         )
         return utils.merge(*metadata)
 
+    def _raw_metadata_get(self, deposit: Deposit) -> List[bytes]:
+        """Given a deposit, returns the metadata as they were received.
+
+        Args:
+            deposit (Deposit): The deposit instance to extract
+            metadata from.
+
+        Returns:
+            list of deposited metadata
+
+        """
+        return [
+            m.raw_metadata.encode("utf8")
+            for m in self._deposit_requests(deposit, request_type=METADATA_TYPE)
+        ]
+
 
 class SWHPrivateAPIView(SWHDefaultConfig, SWHAPIView):
     """Mixin intended as private api (so no authentication) based API view
diff --git a/swh/deposit/tests/loader/common.py b/swh/deposit/tests/loader/common.py
--- a/swh/deposit/tests/loader/common.py
+++ b/swh/deposit/tests/loader/common.py
@@ -5,10 +5,12 @@
 
 import json
 
-from typing import Dict
+from typing import Dict, Optional
 from swh.deposit.client import PrivateApiDepositClient
 
 from swh.model.hashutil import hash_to_bytes, hash_to_hex
+from swh.model.model import SnapshotBranch, TargetType
+from swh.storage.algos.snapshot import snapshot_get_all_branches
 
 CLIENT_TEST_CONFIG = {
     "url": "http://nowhere:9000/",
@@ -85,18 +87,18 @@
     return {k: stats.get(k) for k in keys}
 
 
-def decode_target(target):
+def decode_target(branch: Optional[SnapshotBranch]) -> Optional[Dict]:
     """Test helper to ease readability in test
 
     """
-    if not target:
-        return target
-    target_type = target["target_type"]
+    if not branch:
+        return None
+    target_type = branch.target_type
 
-    if target_type == "alias":
-        decoded_target = target["target"].decode("utf-8")
+    if target_type == TargetType.ALIAS:
+        decoded_target = branch.target.decode("utf-8")
     else:
-        decoded_target = hash_to_hex(target["target"])
+        decoded_target = hash_to_hex(branch.target)
 
     return {"target": decoded_target, "target_type": target_type}
 
@@ -114,7 +116,7 @@
     """
     expected_snapshot_id = expected_snapshot["id"]
     expected_branches = expected_snapshot["branches"]
-    snap = storage.snapshot_get(hash_to_bytes(expected_snapshot_id))
+    snap = snapshot_get_all_branches(hash_to_bytes(expected_snapshot_id))
     if snap is None:
         # display known snapshots instead if possible
         if hasattr(storage, "_snapshots"):  # in-mem storage
@@ -132,7 +134,7 @@
         raise AssertionError("Snapshot is not found")
 
     branches = {
-        branch.decode("utf-8"): decode_target(target)
-        for branch, target in snap["branches"].items()
+        branch.decode("utf-8"): decode_target(branch)
+        for branch_name, branch in snap["branches"].items()
     }
     assert expected_branches == branches