Unable to write Array<Struct<key:String,value:String>> to HBase with Spark HBase connector

[#1]

I am using the hbase-spark-connector that is bundled with C.D.P. I added the connector and shaded protocol jars to HBase's Region Servers' class path as per the documentation and I can read the data in HBase when the datatypes are of primitive type. When I try to write data that is an Array of Structs I have to specify the datatype as String and I cannot read it back as the original datatype.

Is there some sort of configuration that I am missing?

data format:

"""[{"key":"key_name1","value":"value_name1"},{"key":"key_name2","value":"value_name2"}]"""