Espresso mockWebServer response does not intercept http calls

Question

I am trying to intercept the network calls made in my espresso test so that I can override the response with the local copy and make the tests more deterministic .The problem I am facing is even though I setup the MockWebServer correctly I never see any of the http calls being intercepted by it when I make network calls from within my espresso test.I have spent almost two days reading about this but could not figure out the problem.

public class FragmenEspressoTest extends InstrumentationTest<SomeActivity> {
    private MockWebServer mockWebServer;

    @Override
    public Class<HomeDrawerActivity> getActivityClass() {
        return HomeDrawerActivity.class;
    }

    @Before
    public void setUp() {
        super.setUp();
        mockWebServer = new MockWebServer();
        mockWebServer.setDispatcher(dispatcher);
        try {
            mockWebServer.start();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

    }
    final Dispatcher dispatcher = new Dispatcher() {

        @Override
        public MockResponse dispatch(RecordedRequest request) throws InterruptedException {

            if (request.getPath().equals("/v1/login/auth/")){
                return new MockResponse().setResponseCode(200);
            } else if (request.getPath().equals("v1/check/version/")){
                return new MockResponse().setResponseCode(200).setBody("version=9");
            } else if (request.getPath().equals("/v1/profile/info")) {
                return new MockResponse().setResponseCode(200).setBody("{\\\"info\\\":{\\\"name\":\"Lucas Albuquerque\",\"age\":\"21\",\"gender\":\"male\"}}");
            }
            return new MockResponse().setResponseCode(404);
        }
    };
    @After
    public void tearDown() {
        super.tearDown();
        try {
            mockWebServer.shutdown();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    @Test
    public void verifyUITest() {
    //verify some UI do some network calls
   }
}