我想我找到了解决办法。下面的方法似乎有效。。。

@Component
static class PersonMessageConverter
    extends AbstractGenericHttpMessageConverter<Collection<Person>> {

  public PersonMessageConverter() {
    super(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON);
  }

  @Override
  public boolean canWrite(Type type, Class<?> clazz, MediaType mediaType) {
    TypeToken<Collection<Person>> personCollectionType = new com.google.common.reflect.TypeToken<>() {};
    return canWrite(mediaType) && personCollectionType.isSupertypeOf(type);
  }

  @Override
  protected void writeInternal(Collection<Person> persons, Type type, HttpOutputMessage outputMessage)
      throws IOException, HttpMessageNotWritableException {
    // do write...
  }

  // continue with read methods here
}