diff --git a/tests/e2e/helpers/grpc/grpc.go b/tests/e2e/helpers/grpc/grpc.go
index 09d08ba8f31..09523353438 100644
--- a/tests/e2e/helpers/grpc/grpc.go
+++ b/tests/e2e/helpers/grpc/grpc.go
@@ -25,6 +25,10 @@ func WaitForTracingPolicy(ctx context.Context, policyName string) error {
 	maxTries := 20
 	for podName, grpcPort := range tetraPorts {
 		addr := fmt.Sprintf("127.0.0.1:%d", grpcPort)
+		// https://github.com/grpc/grpc-go/pull/7905 requires the number of retries to
+		// be greater than 1 in google.golang.org/grpc v1.7.0.
+		// We already do that + 1 in retryPolicy() so it is safe to make that 1.
+		common.Retries = 1
 		// NB(kkourt): maybe it would make sense to cache the grpc connections in the
 		// context, but we keep things simple for now.
 		c, err := common.NewClient(ctx, addr, 10*time.Second)