Teiid's INSERT and UPDATE statement have no effect [1]. Both statements are translated as UPSERT which needs Connection.commit() to take effect [2].

[1]
select intkey, stringkey from hbase.smalla where intkey = 5

update hbase.smalla set stringkey = '1000' where intkey = 5
no exception here
select intkey, stringkey from hbase.smalla where intkey = 5

[2]
http://phoenix.apache.org/faq.html#I_want_to_get_started_Is_there_a_Phoenix_Hello_World section "2. Using java"